After Twilight botches a spell, a new building suddenly makes its home in Ponyville.
In one world, a high school graduate settles in for the night after a mundane day. In another Twilight Sparkle miscasts a spell. This will surely end well.
Yes that’s right folks, yet another shamelessly self indulgent HiE fic. Ill try to put my own spin on it to keep it interesting.
Begins after Friendship is Magic but before The Ticket Master.
A teenage boy, age seventeen, sighed and looked at the clock on his laptop. Reading 2:00 A.M, he decided it was about time to head to sleep. Shutting down the game he was playing and tucking the device under the bed, he undressed and yawned.
“Another boring-ass day. I really need to find a job. Don’t know why I haven’t been hired yet anyway. I’ve applied to a shit ton of places and everyone’s begging for work. Maybe I’m not doing a good job.”
Rolling under the covers, the teen shut off the light.
“Alexa, shuffle my playlist.”
The monotonous female voice droned out of his Echo, and a song started up.
“Eh, can’t go wrong with Imagine Dragons. Thank god the kids are out too, I can’t stay up another minute.”
The teen was home alone that night. His parents were out late on a date and his younger siblings were staying at their grandparent’s. He had the house to himself, which meant he spent the entire night in his room playing Terraria and gorging himself on mint Oreos. It wasn’t much different compared to what he usually did, but the peace and quiet was nice.
“…Yeah, I REALLY need a job.”
With that final thought, the teen drifted off to sleep.
About an hour or so after he finally drifted off, light started to flash outside the window. Although the teen was a fairly light sleeper, thunderstorms had been common in the area that summer, so he slept right through it. However, the flashing got brighter and more consistent until it was a swirling mass of prismatic light just outside the house. Once again, unaware of the events transpiring, the teen slept on.
“Alright, this spell requires COMPLETE focus! No distractions. Luckily, I’ve secluded myself in the quietest room in any building, the basement!”
Twilight Sparkle had been living in Ponyville around three weeks, and had started to get used to her new surroundings and neighbors. One thing she had learned was that her new friend Pinkie Pie could and would pop up at the most unexpected of times. Which was why she had told the bubbly pink mare to stay away from the library until further notice.
The lavender unicorn put on a look of determination.“Alright. Here goes.”
She read the spell over one last time before taking a breath and starting to cast it. Her face scrunched up in intense concentration and she started to sweat. Eventually, her horn started to spark.
“Almost… got it…”
Just then, the door to the basement opened. “Hey Twilight!”
“Gah!” The sudden interruption caused Twilight to jump and accidentally release the incomplete spell. If bounced across the room. Everything it touched disappeared only to reappear next to or above Twilight, burying her. The spell kept bouncing before flying out an open window.
The pile of various Knick Knacks shook, and Twilight’s unamused face came out of it.
“SPIKE! I thought I told you not to interrupt me!”
The juvenile drake scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Sorry Twilight, I was just going to ask what you wanted for lunch. On another note, what does that spell of yours do?”
“It was supposed to be a long distance summoning spell, but I messed it up when you startled me!”
“Oh, should we… go make sure everything in town is alright? It kind of flew out the window.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “WHAT?! We have to stop it from hitting anything! Come on!”
Twilight and Spike rushed out of the library to find the lingering spell flying though the sky. It bounced off of a couple of roofs before flying out of view. After a second, there was a huge flash of light and the ground started rumbling. The residents of Ponyville going about their day looked around frightened and confused. Somepony yelled ‘Earthquake!’, and then all Tartarus broke loose. Ponies ran around screaming, hiding under stalls, and generally freaking out. After a while, the rumbling stopped and the ponies slowly calmed down.
Twilight stared in a mix of horror and confusion at where the spell had landed. “What… is that?!”
“Twilight!”
Twilight looked to see her friends and fellow element bearers running up to her.
“What in tarnation was that?!”
“It positively ruined my shop!”
“And it spooked all of my poor animal friends.”
“That was fun! It made my voice all funny!”
The cyan pegasus Rainbow Dash flew in front of Twilight and waved a hoof in front of her eyes. “Uh, Equus to Twilight? You okay?”
Twilight simply raised a hoof to point where she was looking. Her friends looked over as well and widened their eyes.
“Where the hay did that come from?!”
“It’s… so massive!”
Right on the edge of Ponyville, a new structure stood. It was easily bigger than any house in the town.
Twilight started hyperventilating. “Okay, okay. So there’s a huge unknown building in Ponyville now. That’s not a reason to panic. We just need to… oh who am I kidding we should absolutely panic!”
Twilight started pacing around in a circle. “This is all my fault! What if there’s something in there? What if it’s hostile? Oh, I knew I should have waited to cast that spell!”
Applejack tilted her head. “What are ya talkin about sugarcube? What spell? Are ya sayin ya’ll made this here weird building appear?”
“Yes! I was trying out a new spell and then Spike opened the door and startled me and I lost focus and the spell went out of control and flew out the window and imploded and made the building appear! The princess is going to be so mad at me! She’ll banish me or send me to the moon or banish me and then-“
Applejack slapped Twilight across the face. “Calm down Twi! There’s no way the princess’ll do any o that. Ah’m sure if ya just send her a letter tellin her what’s goin on, then she’ll tell ya what course o action to take. B’sides, we’re here for ya and’ll help ya sort this mess out, right girls?”
Twilight looked back to her other fiends, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy.
“Of course darling! This building does look rather sophisticated. Perhaps if somepony is living there the local architects could learn a thing or two from them!”
“Yeah of course Twi! I’d never leave ya hanging! And like Rares said, this building looks super cool! Almost as cool as my house!”
“Oh, I hope somepony is living there so I can throw them a welcome to Ponyville party and then a ‘Sorry we accidentally teleported your house to Ponyville party and then a-“
Rainbow put her hoof to Pinkie’s mouth and motioned for Fluttershy to speak.
“Oh, the building does look rather scary, but if you need me to come with you girls, I’ll help all that I can.”
Happy that her friends were behind her, Twilight gave a calming breath. “Thank you girls, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Spike, take a letter. We need to let the princess know what’s going on. Ahem. ‘Dear Princess Celestia, a mysterious building has appeared in Ponyville after I… was startled while casting an advanced spell. I would like to know whether my friends and I should investigate or wait for proper help. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.’”
Spike sent the letter away in a puff of green flame. “There! Now we wait!”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Boo! Waiting’s boring! I say we just go check it out already!”
“Rainbow! It could be dangerous! We need to wait for the princess’s response!”
“Ugh, fine!”
After a couple of minutes, Spike’s cheeks puffed up, before he belched out a scroll. Twilight eagerly yanked it out of his claws and opened it up. “My dearest Twilight, I saw the flash from Canterlot. Normally, I would have the the royal guard handle something like this, but you and your friends have proved yourselves quite capable. I wish for you to go and investigate this odd building. Although I could not see it well from the castle, I will admit I have never seen a structure quite like it. If the situation proves too much for you to handle, report back to me immediately and I will handle it myself.”
Rainbow pumped a hoof. “See Twilight? Even the princess thinks we can do this ourselves! So c’mon, let’s go!”
“Rainbow, hold on! Even if we got the go ahead from Princess Celestia, we should still be careful. We don’t know who, or rather what could be living there!”
“Fine, fine. I got it, caution and all that.”
“Thank you. Now let’s just-wait, where did Pinkie go?”
Twilight and the others looked around frantically for the pink mare before finally spotting her knocking on the door to the mysterious house.
“Hello! Your new neighbor Pinkie Pie is here to give you a supertacular welcome!”
Pinkie was abruptly tackled by the other five mares and silenced with their hoofs.
“Shhhh!! Pinkie, what were you thinking?! Something dangerous could be in there!”
“I was just trying to welcome them! I have to give every new pony a big Ponyville welcome!”
“We don’t even know if it’s a pony that lives there. sigh, tell you what Pinkie. If there is a pony living there, you can throw a party for them once everything gets sorted out.”
“Okie Dokie Lokie! I’ll throw them the most awesomest party ever!”
Satisfied with that, Twilight looked up at the house. “Alright girls, let’s get to the bottom of this. Spike go watch the library until I get back.”
“What?! How come I can’t come?”
“Because it could be dangerous and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
Spike sighed and walked away dejectedly.
“Alright, before we find a way in, let’s check the perimeter first. Rainbow and Fluttershy, you two check the windows that are high up, the rest of us will scout the ground floor. If you find anything of interest, report back to me.”
Rainbow gave a salute. “You can count on me Twilight! C’mon Flutters!”
“O-oh. If you’re sure.”
After the two Pegasi had flown off, Twilight looked to the others. “Alright girls, let’s split up. Let me know if you find anything, but do not, I repeat do NOT go inside until you’ve checked it over.”
The others gave a nod and spread out around the house.
Fluttershy was looking into one of the windows in awe. She had looked into it and found a hallway full of pictures of what she equated to a group of hairless apes. The only hair they had that she could see was on their head. They were also wearing clothing, so she assumed they were also at least somewhat civilized.
“Hey Flutters, found anything?”
Rainbow Dash flew up to her shy friend and looked where she was pointing.
“Oh wow… snrk. They look ridiculous! Do you think that’s what’s living here?”
“I don’t know, but they look so adorable! How could anything like that be dangerous?”
“I don’t know Shy. Have you seen how tall the ceilings are in this place? They could be pretty big.”
Fluttershy just continued to stare excitedly at the photos.
Rainbow looked over and squinted her eyes. “Hey is it just me or is that room glowing?”
The prismatic pegasus flew over to the window in looked in. Adorning the corners of the walls and draped across the ceiling were what appeared to be multicolored glowing crystals.
“Oh wow. Rarity would get a kick out of this. Hay, even I think this is cool. Maybe I could get some for my house!”
Dash stared at the lights for a while longer before flying off to check another window.
Rarity looked through a window to find an expansive living room. There were table lamps next to rather large chairs. There was also a giant couch resting up against the wall that was facing towards an odd black rectangle mounted on the opposite wall. But none of that was what caught the white unicorn’s eyes.
“My, that carpet is simply fabulous! Such and intricate design, and such neat threads! Whoever made such a masterpiece must be quite skilled! I simply must see if I can get a similar one for my boutique! Oh, and that loveseat behind the couch is quite luxurious as well! Simple, but elegant! Oh, I would simply die for the furniture in this house! And those curtains! They are just-“
Twilight looked in awe in the dark room she had found. “That’s the biggest carriage I’ve ever seen! How would anypony be able to pull that? Maybe it has an enchantment that makes it lighter?”
Twilight couldn’t see into the vehicle, the dark room combined with the black tinted windows made that hard. But she did notice a strange metal pipe sticking out of the back, and many other things a carriage didn’t usually have.
“I need to get a closer look! But we need to make sure it’s safe first! But it’s so intriguing! Oh, I need to go somewhere else or I might go in without the girls!”
Twilight gave one last longing look at the odd carriage-if that’s what it even was, before she walked away to find something else.
Applejack walked around the back of the house to find a black metal gate blocking an area.
“Well I’ll be darned. That’s one tall gate. And wait, is that one of them fancy pony made ponds? What’d them fancy Canterlot ponies call em? ‘Pools’? Yeah that sounds bout right. Man, whatever pony lives here must have quite a bit o cash.”
Applejack’s ears perked up. There was a soft humming coming from the metal box inside the gate.
“Hm? What’s this here doohickey? Ah guess ah’ll just have ta see later.”
“Hey Applejack!”
The orange farm pony looked behind her to see Pinkie Pie jumping up and down. “This pony has a trampoline! A really big and bouncy one too! Look how high I can jump!”
“Pinkie! Git offa that! What if the pony’s inside and sees ya?”
“Oooh! They might feel jealous and want to come bounce too! We’re supposed to be sneaky though so that would be bad.”
Pinkie bounced off of the trampoline and landed over near a pavilion.
“Hey Applejack, come check this out! They have some sort of hot bathtub!”
Applejack rolled her eyes and walked down towards Pinkie. She was dipping her hoof into the water, which was steaming slightly. Applejack dipped her hoof in and was surprised to find it was hot, but not uncomfortably so.
“Huh. An outdoor bathtub. Nah, it looks like they’d use this ta relax. Though ah don’t know what this thing is made of.”
Pinkie saw a bunch of buttons on the side of the tub and gasped. “Ooh! I wonder what this does!”
She pressed one of the buttons and there was a rumbling from the tub. Applejack backed off until she saw that it just started bubbling.
“Pinkie! Leave those alone! Ya don’t know what they could do!”
Pinkie didn’t appear to register that and pushed another button. A light under the water turned on and flashed different colors.
“Oooh! Pretty! Oh! Oh! I wonder what THIS one-“
Applejack pulled Pinkie away from the buttons grumbling.
“Pinkie! You can’t just go touching other pony’s things! What if you broke it?”
“Oh, well why didn’t you just say so?”
“Ah DID-nevermind. Just try not ta touch anything else please.”
“What about the ground? I HAVE to touch that!”
“Pinkie, ya know what ah mean. Now c’mon. Let’s go meet up with Twi. Ah’m pretty sure we’ve seen all there is ta see out back here.”
Pinkie looked over to the back deck of the house. “Hey there she is! It looks like she found a way in!”
Rainbow Dash had looked in almost every window on the second floor and was getting bored. “Oh come on! I thought there would be cool stuff up here, but there’s just bathrooms and bedrooms! I mean sure the beds are huge and the bathrooms have weird toilets, but apart from that all I’ve seen are those lights!”
She came over to the only window she hadn’t checked to find Fluttershy staring at it.
“Hey Flutters, anything interesting in the-“
Rainbow was abruptly grabbed by her shy friend and had her mouth covered. “Shhhh! Look!”
Rainbow peeked into the room and gasped. There was a pony. A lime green unicorn to be exact sleeping in the bed.
“So somepony DOES live here! Well, it’s better than a dragon, heh. But why would they have so many pictures of those apes? Maybe it’s a photographer.”
Fluttershy peeked in as well. As soon as she did so, the black cylinder on the bedside table started to glow on the top and a sound came out of it that they could hear through the window. The unicorn began to roll around in bed, appearing to wake up. Fluttershy gasped and pulled herself and Rainbow out of view.
“We’ve got to let Twilight know that there’s a pony living here! Come on, before she finds a way in!”
The two Pegasi flew around looking for Twilight until they found her, Applejack and Pinkie in a doorway in the back deck.
“It was the only door that wasn’t locked. Go find Rarity, Rainbow and Fluttershy and tell them that-“
“Twilight, close the door, there’s a pony living there!”
The three looked up to find Rainbow dash looking flustered. Fluttershy was catching up and also appeared to be nervous.
“Oh! Whoops! In hindsight I probably should have waited for you to report back. I was just so exited! This house has so many strange and wonderful things!”
Twilight went to close the door, but before she could completely shut it, a scream of confusion and terror rang out within the house.
The echo on the side of the bed rang it’s alarm, and a lime green unicorn groaned and shuffled around in bed.
“Ugh. Alexa, stop. Damn… I really need to stop staying up so late.”
The unicorn sighed and reached for the glasses on the nightstand, only to stop when he noticed his hoof.
“…huh. Is this what a lucid dream feels like? Well this is weird. I’m waking myself up.”
The unicorn slapped himself across the face. He looked back to his hoof, blinked, rubbed his eyes and put his glasses on, blinked again.
“Okay… WHAT THE FUCK?!?!!”
The unicorn tried to rip their sheets off, but they couldn’t get a good grip without their lack of fingers. They groaned and lifted the sheets off himself with his mouth. Upon seeing the rest of his body, he froze.
“Well, I’m really confident that I didn’t do any drugs last night, let alone ever, so the only other reasonable explanation is that I’m in hell. Why else would I be a horse?”
The unicorn groaned and rolled out of bed and flopped onto the ground.
“Jeez, how do quadrupeds even stand? This feels weird as hell. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’m going insane.”
They lifted their front legs up, and then their back. “Okay, I’m standing. Now the hard part. Walking.”
They shakily stepped forward with one of their front legs. That didn’t feel right, so they tried thier back leg next. That felt more natural. They tried walking around their room a little. When they felt confident enough about moving, they walked up and grabbed their robe off of their desk chair.
“Damn I’m short. I can’t even see over my bed without standing on two legs. I’m kinda glad that no one else is home, this is humiliating as hell. I need to get a better look at myself.”
He walked up to the door and found it closed. “…fuck. Guess I’m dragging the chair over.”
After about five minutes of trying to figure out how to drag a chair with his mouth, the unicorn finally managed to climb up within reach of the knob and opened the door. Luckily, the bathroom door was open. Unluckily, the mirror was above the sink, which was now too tall for him to get to.
“You gotta be shittin me. Alright, to the toilet I guess.” They jumped up onto the toilet cover and then again to the top of it. From there they managed to make it to the counter of the sink. They looked to the mirror and widened their eyes.
“A horn. Of course, I’m a magical fucking unicorn. Sigh, well here’s hoping it does something besides glow and play rave music I guess. Also, why are my eyes so goddamn big? What am I, a fuckin anime horse?”
They took off their bathrobe, and with much more difficulty, their underwear, to find that they had a tattoo plastered on their ass.
“Ok, A) I don’t remember getting a tattoo, and B) why would anyone get a tattoo there of all places?! God, I know I felt that slap and all, but I’m starting to think I’m still dreaming.”
He put his bathrobe back on, and absolutely refusing to pick his underwear up with his mouth, simply pushed it off the counter.
“Alright, back down I go. How am I gonna—WOAH!”
Given that his robe was much too big for his new body, the lime unicorn tripped on it and fell off of the counter onto the hard tiled floor.
“…ow. This just gets better and better. Well I guess I’m down now. I wish I could check my phone with these stupid hooves. Mom and Dad should be back by now. Then again, they not being here is the least surprising thing to happen this morning.”
He went back into his room and collected his phone. Putting it in his robe pocket, he trudged down the stairs.
“Ugh. I’m so fucking tiny. I seriously have to jump down one step at a time? Well whatever. Guess it’s a good thing I’ve started working out again. Something tells me moving around the house is gonna be more strenuous.”
The unicorn looked into the mirror on the wall at the bottom of the stairs and sighed. “Y’know, I’m surprised I’m not freaking out more. I know I’m considered the adaptable type, but not to this extent. Then again, freaking out won’t help much at this point. I think I’ll just watch some TV to take my mind off of how I’ve somehow been turned into a tiny green unicorn. God, it sounds even more ridiculous out loud.”
After turning the TV on *shiver* manually, the unicorn jumped up onto the couch and grabbed the Roku stick.
“Thank god for voice command. Go to YouTube.”
Searching up one of his favorite channels, he put a random video on. “Nothing calms the nerves like drowning in irony.”
About an hour passed by. After watching a couple of Mario Maker videos that were essentially just podcasts, he was getting kind of hungry.
“Hm, no way I’m gonna be able to cook bacon and eggs like this, so I guess Cinnamon Toast Crunch will have to do.”
He walked into the pantry and pulled out one of the only cereals he actually liked. Rather than going to the trouble of trying to get a bowl with his new height, he decided to just pour the cereal into his mouth.
As he went back into the living room, he found his phone vibrating. The caller reading ‘Mom’.
“Shit.” The u I corn funneled with the phone, trying to pick it up. Eventually he managed to answer.
“Hey Mom. Huh, what do you mean ‘Am I safe?’ I’m at the house. Yeah I’ve had kind of a weird morning… okay, a really weird morning but I’m not in danger or anything, calm down.”
The unicorn went silent as he listened to his mother. After a moment his eyes widened. “What do you mean ‘The house is gone’?!”
Twilight and the others froze. The scream sounded definitively male, and came from upstairs.
“I say, somepony is in quite the tizzy. I don’t even understand that last word they used.”
Rarity came around the side of the house to meet up with the others. They all stared inside the house in nervousness. Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought.
“I think I’ve heard that word before. Wait, that’s it! I read a word that sounds like that in the Canterlot archives! The book was called ‘Ancient And Forgotten Languages’. Apparently a long time ago, there was more than one language if you could believe it! While interesting, it seems incredibly inefficient to have more than one spoken language, everycreature would get confused!”
Applejack coughed. “Sugarcube, ah know this is interestin to ya an all, but could ya get to tha point?”
“Hehe, sorry. Anyway, I read that back around the time Celestia and Luna took power, there were words in the Equestrian language that were considered foul. The princesses decided that ponies didn’t need such language, and weeded it out of society over the centuries. How the pony living here would know about such a word is quite baffling! Maybe they’re a historian?”
Pinkie Pie bounced around Twilight excitedly. “Well there’s only one way to find out! We have a stakeout!”
Rainbow blinked. “You mean we spy on him? Doesn’t that seem like an invasion of privacy?”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Darling, we’ve already been snooping around his house, that isn’t much different.
Fluttershy raised a hoof. “I’m, girls? Why don’t we just… talk to him?”
“Fluttershy darling, did you hear that scream. Clearly they are in distress. Take it from me, you can’t have a calm conversation with somepony who is in such a state. I say we observe him until we at least know what to think of him.
“Oh, oh, I can figure out everything he likes for his welcome party!”
“Well, I guess I am a little curious about everything in his house. It couldn’t hurt to do a little intel gathering. Alright girls! I have the perfect spell for something like this!”
“Ooh! Is it an invisibility spell?”
“No, those are incredibly complex. It’s a spell that will let us hear through walls. That way we’ll be able to hear what’s going on without going inside!”
Applejack snorted. “Now that’s definitely invadin his privacy. All o this just seems a might dishonest ta me.”
“Come on Applejack, the princess asked us to investigate, and this is investigating!”
“Sigh, ah know, I jus don’t like this. Ah’ll help out, but I’m tellin him what we did as soon as we meet em.”
“Thanks Applejack. I know this must be hard for you given your honest nature. Now stand back girls, I’m going to cast the spell.”
Twilight’s horn glowed, and suddenly the six mares could hear muffled talk coming from above them.
“He must still be upstairs! Rainbow, go listen in in what he’s saying and report back when he comes down.”
Rainbow Dash gave a salute and flew up. “Alright, the rest of us can stay here until she gets back, and then we’ll continue to observe him and what he does until we have an opportunity to introduce ourselves.”
The mares engaged in quiet small talk while they waited for their rainbow maned friend. Around ten minutes later, Rainbow came back, looking more than a little out of it.
“Uh, girls, I think that this pony is a lot more than he seems.”
“What d’ya mean Dash? What’d ya hear?”
Well for one, he was having trouble walking when I got back up to spy on him. He was also complaining about being too small for everything. He even had to pull his huge chair over just to open the door because the knob was so high!”
Twilight gave Rainbow a weird look. “Okay, that is strange, but we already knew that most of the stuff in the house was too big for anypony. The walking problem could have just been because his legs fell asleep.”
“Let me finish! Then he said he needed to ‘get a better look at himself’ and went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. Here’s the real shocker, he was surprised to see that he had a horn! He didn’t even know that he was a unicorn! Not to mention he didn’t know what a cutie mark is either. He called his a ‘Tattoo’, whatever that is.”
Twilight blinked. “Okay, you’re right, that is really weird. But we can’t jump to conclusions!”
“There’s one more thing too. He was wearing glasses that didn’t fit him really well. Did Fluttershy tell you about the pictures of the strange creatures we saw upstairs?”
Her friends shook their heads. “Well one of them was wearing a pair of glasses that look EXACTLY like the ones the pony was wearing.”
Twilight started to look a little nervous. “Okay… that’s very strong evidence, but I’m going to need confirmation to believe it.”
“Well I think he’s heading downstairs now, so let’s go catch up.”
The group of mares hurried around to the front of the house in time to catch the mysterious unicorn(?) going down the stairs.
“I think I’ll just watch some TV to take my mind off of how I’ve somehow been turned into a tiny green unicorn.” A pause. “God, that sounds even more ridiculous out loud.”
Twilight frowned. “Okay, I can officially say this pony is either not supposed to be a pony or is simply insane and an amnesiac. Surprisingly, the former seems more likely somehow.”
The unicorn went up to the strange black rectangle and pressed a button on it. The rectangle glowed and showed a picture on it.
Twilight gasped. “A miniature cinema? But where’s the projector?”
The unicorn picked up a black stick with buttons on it and spoke into it. The screen changed and a video started up.
“Voice recognition? That must be a super advanced magical device!”
Rarity gave the screen an odd look. “Perhaps it’s not even magic.”
Twilight gave her friend a look. “But look at it! It has to be magic! How could anything except magic do that?”
“All I’m saying is that this pony and his house have proved to be quite odd and unusual already. Who’s to say that his devices run on something besides magic?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “That’s absurd. No known force besides magic can do everything we’ve seen here.”
The group fell back into silence. The unicorn didn’t appear to do much for a while. They watched the screen in silence. It appeared to be a video of two males playing a video game and ranting about a restaurant named ‘Wendy’s’. After about an hour, the unicorn got up. After they left the room, the small thin device they had taken out of their pocket lit up and started to emit an alarm of sorts. The unicorn ran back and fumbled with it a moment before putting up to his head.
“Hello Mom?”
Pinkie Pie giggled “hahah! That’s silly, why would he call that little box Mom?”
Twilight listened with rapt attention. Even with the spell, she couldn’t hear what the device was saying.
The unicorn was silent for a moment before he widened his eyes. “What do you mean ‘the house is gone’?!”
The unicorn fumbled around on three legs, trying to keep the device near their head while walking towards the window. They jumped up onto a chair and looked out a window. Twilight and her friends made sure to duck below his view before he saw them.
“…uh, mom, what would you think if I told you that when I look out the window I see a bunch of buildings that look like they came from the dark ages?” A pause. “Yeah, that sounds about right, so then I’d assume you also wouldn’t believe me if I said that I’ve been turned into a tiny green unicorn?” Another pause. “Yeah, sorry, wrong time for a joke. I mean sure you can call the cops, but I don’t know how you’re going to explain this to them. Houses don’t just disappear like this. …yes I swear on my life I’m still in the house, and no, I don’t know where I am. …okay, I’ll take a picture and send it. Alright, bye, don’t panic, we’ll figure this out.”
The unicorn put the phone down. “Well fuck, I’m sure as hell not in Kansas anymore. Then again, I could be. Never been there after all.”
The unicorn fumbled with the lock on the window and opened it up. He poked his head out and looked around. “Why does everything look so… cartoony? I’m just noticing this now actually. Everything’s so much less detailed.”
And then he looked down to see six multicolored ponies staring up at him nervously. The purple one raised a shaky hoof. “Uhh, hi?”
The unicorn blinked, and promptly slammed the window shut.
The unicorn slammed the window shut before pacing around in a circle ranting. “Seriously?! Not only have my house and I somehow been isekai’d into magical cartoon horse land, but now I’m being stalked by the residents! Damn, It’s times like these where I realize why people drink.”
As he was ranting, he heard a knock on his front door. He threw his front hooves up in exasperation, and face-planted into the floor. “Sigh, right, quadruped.”
The unicorn went back over to the window and poked his head out to find the six ponies at his front door. The purple one noticed him and smiled sheepishly.
“Oh… Um, we’re sorry for spying on you. Can we try to explain?”
“…whatever, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you in here until I have a reason to trust you. You can explain outside.”
“Hehe, that’s fair. So, I’m, Hi! I’m Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie!”
The unicorn blinked. “Even if you weren’t pointing to them, I could probably correctly guess who each one was by looking at them and that’s freaky. I’m assuming those are nicknames?”
“Huh? No those are our real names. Why would I introduce ourselves by nicknames?”
“…those are really weird names. But then again, different cultures. I’m assuming you want my name now?” At seeing the mares nod, he sighed. “Name’s Galen. To be fair. My name isn’t that normal either. I’ve only ever heard of two others with that name, and one of them is a fictional character.”
The one called Rainbow Dash snrked. “And you say our names are weird! ‘Galen?’ That’s the weirdest name I’ve ever heard!”
Rainbow was promptly smacked upside the head by the orange one called Applejack. “Be nice Rainbow! He’s already uncomfortable as it is!”
“Uncomfortable doesn’t begin to cover how I’m feeling right now. I woke up as something that up until now I assumed to be mythological, and now I’m talking to a group of talking multicolored unicorn, Pegasi and… is there a name for the ones without a horn or wings, because if not I’m just gonna call them ‘normal’.”
“Earth Pony.”
Galen just stared in silence for a moment before muttering. “Ponies. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be ponies? …okay Earth Pony, got it. But as I was saying, I’m here as a fucking unicorn talking to other ponies in a world that looks like it came from the mind of a 7 year old girl. The only reason I’m not flipping my shit is because I’ve determined that logic and reason have died.”
Pinkie popped up next to Galen inside his house making him jump. “Wow, you sound super duper stressed out! Here have a cupcake! It’ll make you feel better!”
Galen blinked, took the cupcake and set it on the table and then dumped Pinkie back out the window.
“Thanks, but please stay out of the house until I say you can come in.”
“Okie dokie lokie! I can’t wait until we’re friends and you let us in so we can all hang out at your super cool house and-“
Galen tuned the pink mare out and turned to Twilight as she spoke up. “Um, sorry about her, she’s a little hyper.”
“I have five younger siblings, I’m more than used to it.”
“Wow, that’s a lot! Most ponies don’t have more than three kids! Ehem, sorry, I’m getting off track. So, uh, where ARE you from?”
“New York state, country United States Of America, planet Earth, solar system Sol, Milky Way galaxy, third dimension. That answer your question?”
Twilight blinked. “No actually. The only thing I know out of everything you just said is the third dimension, but that’s a plane of existence, so it’s kind of hard not to.”
“Yeah I figured not. If there were an intelligent race living within our galaxy, we’d probably know about it. Which leaves two remaining possibilities. Either A) I’m on a planet so far away that even our most high powered telescopes can’t see it, or B) I’m in a different universe. Both are equally ludicrous. Then again, I’m a tiny green unicorn pony, so anything’s possible I guess.”
Twilight had pulled out a scroll and was writing down everything he said down. “Fascinating! You have telescopes as well? I guess it should have been obvious given everything we’ve seen in your house so far. How powerful are they? We could compare models!”
“Well I don’t have one myself, but I think the furthest planet we’ve discovered was like 13,000 light years away or something.”
Twilight stopped writing and looked up at Galen in shock. “Th-thirteen thousand light years?! That’s insanely far! What sort of magic did you use to make such a powerful telescope?!”
“The magic of science. But really though, I don’t know what sort of technology went into that thing. I’m not an expert on the subject.”
“What do you mean ‘the magic of science’? Magic IS science.”
“Not where I’m from it’s not. Where I’m from, magic doesn’t exist. People use ‘magic’ to explain things that they can’t understand. That mentality is dangerous though, it’s what caused tragedies like the Salem witch trials, or how the church got so much power in the Middle Ages. On earth, magic is mostly for children’s fantasies or fiction. To genuinely believe in magic is ignorant. But again, I’m not sure that mentality applies in my current situation.”
Twilight’s eye twitched and her friends took a step back. “How can you not believe in magic?! It’s what keeps the entire world going! It’s how the sun and moon rise and set! Everycreature has magic! For you to say that magic doesn’t exist is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Hay, the entire reason you’re here is because of a magical accident!”
Galen took Twilight’s rant with a straight face, but raised a brow when she said that last bit.
“…oops. I meant to ease you into that reveal. Um, I guess I have some explaining to do huh?”
“Uh, yeah. You do.”
“…okay. This is my fault. Don’t get mad at the girls, they didn’t do anything wrong, they were just trying to help me investigate. I was trying to cast a difficult spell, but I was startled and lost focus. The spell went wild and somehow managed to bring your house here.”
“And what was this ‘spell’ supposed to do?”
“It was meant to be a long distance summoning spell, and I guess that’s what it did, just not as planned, hehe.”
Galen said nothing for a while, simply staring at the purple unicorn. Twilight folded her ears against her skull and took a step back. Her friends huddled around her in case he were to lash out at her. Eventually, he lowered his gaze and sighed.
“…I REALLY want to be pissed at you, but based on what you said. This was a complete accident. I can’t really be too upset at you specifically, so my aggression is mostly going to be towards fate.”
Twilight was shocked. “Really? You’re not mad at me at all?!”
“I’ve been told I’m a pretty forgiving person. But still, accident or not, you still tore me away from my life, friends and family. Not to mention my parents and siblings are without a house until we can figure out a way for me to get back home. I’m not mad at you because I feel like the guilt of what you did is punishment enough.”
Galen backed away from the window as Twilight started to tear up. Her friends went to comfort her.
“Come inside once you’re ready. I feel like we need to talk more.”
Rainbow growled and advanced towards the house. “That was cold dude! What is wrong with you?!”
“It was the truth, and a truth she needed to hear. She seems like she’ll be able to handle it, she just needs some time.”
Applejack walked up to Rainbow and put a hoof on her shoulder. “He’s right sugarcube. ‘Sides, he said that he has family and friends back home that he’s clearly missing. Its only natural that he'd be upset.”
Twilight looked up at Galen’s retreating form. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to find a way for you to get home, I promise!”
“I already said I don’t blame you, so help getting back home is already more than I could ask for. Give me about ten minutes. I… need some time to cope. I didn’t realize what I’d lost until I said it out loud. Just jump through the window when you’re ready to come in, there’s no way I’m opening that front door.”
The six mares watched as the green unicorn ascended the stairs.
Rarity pat Twilight on the back. “Are you alright darling?”
The lavender unicorn sniffed. “Yeah… I’ll be fine. Heh, look at me, I’m the one crying when he’s the one who just lost everything.”
Twilight’s eyes tracked Galen’s green form until he was out of view. “I couldn’t have imagined that today would end up like this. I’ll make it up to you… and then hopefully we can be friends!”
Twilight had calmed down, and the mares were staring inside the house.
"So... should we go in? He said that we could while he... processed."
Rainbow and Pinkie were already inside before Twilight finished her sentence. "...Well I guess that answers that. Come on girls, let's go in, but don't mess with anythin-"
"Hey, here's that stick thingy he was using to control the projector!" Pinkie held the remote up in her hoof and pressed the power button. The television flashed on, and the mares stared at it in wonder.
Fluttershy widened her eyes as she looked at the TV. "Oh! It's those creatures that we saw in the pictures upstairs! What are they doing?"
Twilight watched as the taller creature walked around with a smaller one, a smile on both of their faces. "From the sounds of things, it's an advertisement for some sort of medication. Although they're listing quite a few less than desirable side effects. Why would anypony buy that?"
"Perhaps it's their best option. Also, I wouldn't call them ponies darling. They are clearly some creature we haven't seen before."
Twilight gasped. "Do you think that Galen used to be one of these creatures?"
"With everything we've seen and heard, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion."
Twilight hopped up and down in excitement. "Oh, this is so exiting! An alien to Equestria and his house right in town! We could learn so much from him! W-well, after we smooth things over of course."
Rarity ran a hoof across the curtains. "I agree! I simply must know how this décor was so expertly crafted! Why, I don't even know what material that couch is made of."
Fluttershy squinted at one of the couch cushions and gasped in horror. "Um... I might..."
Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were walking, or in Dash's case, flying around the kitchen.
"Man, this place is huge! Whatever Galen used to be must be giant!"
"Yeah. none o this seems practical fer a pony ta use."
Pinkie bounced around a chair excitedly. "I think it's cool! It's like we're inside a giant's castle!"
Applejack walked up to a glass cabinet with a bunch of bottles and cans inside. "Huh, this is an odd icebox. Guess this is where they keep their drinks."
The farmpony opened the minifridge up and inspected the various cans and bottles. "...They're definitely labeled, but ah can't make heads er tails o these symbols! Could it be possible we got different written languages?"
Pinkie hopped over to a corner and opened a cabinet door. She gasped when she saw the inside.
"Flour, sugar, baking soda... EEEEEEEE! He has baking supplies! He must know so many recipies for sweets! Oh we'll have to exchange recipies so then we both know how to make more delicious treats!"
Rainbow flew over to the large white box that was up against one of the walls and grabbed the handle. The door opened and a cool breeze came out of it.
"Whoa! Look at all this stuff. I see lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes, and a bunch of other stuff. Huh, no flowers though. Maybe he's allergic. Hey what's this red stuff?"
Applejack was inspecting one of the cans, trying to make out the symbols on it when she heard a call from Rainbow. "Hey AJ, do you know what this red squishy stuff is? I found it in The big icebox!"
Applejack looked at what Rainbow was holding and turned a little green. "D-Dash, that'..."
"Alexa, stop."
Galen sighed and hopped off of his bed. The pent up stress and anxiety had finally caught up with him, and finding out that he would be away from his friends and family for god knows how long hadn't helped. As such, he had cried silent tears on his bed while listening to Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The silent mourning had been relieving, and he felt better than he would have had he bottled it up.
The now-a-unicorn went back into the bathroom to do what he had forgotten to do when he woke up. He hopped back up onto the sink and brushed his teeth, which was more difficult with hooves. In doing so, he noticed something.
"Huh, my canines are gone. Well, whatever. Doesn't mean I'm gonna stop eating meat. In fact I could really go for some jerky right about now. Once I get the mint taste out of my mouth anyway."
Next he grabbed a couple bottles of medication and dumped the pills onto the counter. "Thank god for anxiety meds. I probably would've gone batshit crazy without these."
Galen poured a glass of water from the sink and downed it with the meds. "Alright, I'm officially ready to face the day, and my new pony neighbors, apparently."
He exited the bathroom and climbed down the stairs. as he was reaching the bottom, he saw the six mares inside his living room giving him rather perturbed looks.
"Uhh... is something the matter? Let me guess, you turned the news on."
Rarity spoke up first. "Darling, Is your couch made of LEATHER?"
Rainbow walked up next to her. "And why do you have meat in your icebox! Are you a cannibal?!"
Galen gave Rainbow an unamused stare. "Okay, A) no, I'm not a cannibal, that shit's despicable. B) yeah, the couch is made of leather, and what you saw in my fridge was either chicken, pork or beef. I used to be an omnivore, and I don't plan on changing my diet, meat tastes too damn good. Although I should ask, are there any other intelligent species I should worry about? Don't wanna go eating anything sentient."
Applejack sputtered a moment before getting a grip. "Ys say ya eat beef and then say ya don't wanna eat anythin sentient, yer contradictin yerself!"
"...Ah. Cows are smart here? Damn. Before any of you freak out, cows are dumb farm animals where I come from. All they do is graze and wander."
Twilight frowned. "That's... odd. very odd. Um, anyhow, I'm sorry to break it to you Galen... but ponies can't really digest meat."
Fluttershy raised a hoof. "Um, actually Twilight, that's just a myth. Ponies can eat meat, it's just that we don't since it's considered taboo. Meat eating fell out of practice a long time ago, and after a while ponies just assumed they couldn't eat it"
The other mares stared in shock at their shy friend. "Fluttershy... how do you know about that?"
"Oh... well I've done a lot of reading on the diets of animals, and I stumbled on a book on the subject as a result. I will admit that mister bear has convinced me to try some fish, and a teensy bit of pork."
The mares kept staring at Fluttershy. "U-um... that's not too bad I hope, I just wanted to relate to my carnivore friends a little more... please don't be mad."
Applejack was the first to shake out of her stupor. "Sugarcube... we're not mad at ya, we're just surprised. We figured that since you love animals so much, ya'd be the most against meat eatin."
"W-well, I understand that some animals need meat to survive, so it's not too awful unfamiliar to me. If it's alright with you girls, I don't mind that Galen eats meat."
Pinkie jumped over and gave Fluttershy a hug. "Oh, that's so sweet! I'm okay with it too, I don't get it, but that's okay! It's like a pony not liking cake. I don't understand it, but it's their choice!"
Rarity gave a small cough. "Well, I may find it... horribly uncouth, but if your used to such a diet, I don't see why I should have a say."
Rainbow flew over and gave Galen a noogie. She laughed when he glared up at her. "Hey dude, it's cool. I was just caught off guard. I mean, I have a griffon friend who eats meat, so it's not too new to me.
Twilight gave an awkward smile. "Well, it was certainly an... unexpected development, but as long as you're not eating anything capable of advanced thought, it's fine. I... actually may want to experiment with that diet a little later myself, if what Fluttershy said is true."
Applejack gave Galen a hard stare. "Ya said that nothin ya eat is intelligent?"
Galen shook his head. "Not in the slightest."
"Well... As long as ya don't go after mah cows, we're fine. Ah just hope them animals didn't suffer."
"Oh no, the meat I eat is obtained in a very humane fashion. No suffering involved."
The mares tilted their heads at that.
"Humane, what's that mean?"
Galen rolled his eyes. "Humane, as in human. What I used to be before I got thrown into magical pony world?"
The six mares stared at Him bug eyed, before all of them blurted out the same sentence. "LYRA WAS RIGHT?!?!?!?!"
Chapter 6: Wonders of Technology (Featuring a Dog!)
Galen gave the six mares an odd look. “Uh… who’s Lyra, and what was she right about?”
Twilight sighed. “Lyra Heartstrings is a local pony who is absolutely obsessed with humans. We all thought she was just making it up either for attention or because she was crazy, but it turns out she was right. Humans do exist.”
Galen raised a brow in confusion. “Uhh, how would she even know about humans? I’m fairly certain we’ve never been to magic pony land before, so she shouldn’t even have a reason to begin to think we exist, let alone know the name of our species.”
Applejack just shrugged. “Ah don’t know, just like ya don’t question Pinkie’s… well, anything, ya don’t question Lyra about humans. Well, unless ya want her jabberin to ya fer hours about em.”
Galen frowned. “Well, she sounds like an annoyance, but she might have a clue as to how I can get home. So I might end up having to talk to her. I’ll just have to bring a ton of aspirin with me.”
Twilight tilted her head. “What’s aspirin?”
“Medication that dulls headaches.”
“Ah. Then yes, bring as much of that as you can.”
Galen rolls his head, cracking his neck. The sound elicited a wince from a couple of the mares. “Well, you all seem pretty curious about my house, and I got nothing better to do for now. Do you wanna have a look around?”
Rainbow did a loop-de-loop in the air. “Heck yeah! You must have all sorts of awesome stuff in your house! Nothing as awesome as me of course, but still cool!”
Rarity’s eyes gleamed. “Oh you simply must show me all of your decorations, ooh, and your wardrobe! I’m simply dying to see what human fashion is like!”
Pinkie jumped up and down! “I want to see more of what your weird projector can show us! Ooh, ooh! And your outside bathtub, and your big bouncy trampoline, and your baking supplies and everything else!”
Applejack looked into the kitchen. “Ah’m a mite curious bout what else ya got in yer kitchen. Besides the *shiver* meat ah mean.”
Twilight looked around In wonder. “I’m just so curious about your, well, everything! I simply must learn all about it! Ooh, speaking of, where are your books?!”
Fluttershy looked around. “I’m wondering if you have any pets. I’d love to meet a new animal friend!”
Galen widened his eyes in alarm. “Oh shit Sam!” The former human took off across the house, the six mares trailing behind him confused.
He stopped at a closed door at the end of a hallway. “Damn it, I forgot I’m tiny now. Can one of you with wings open the door for me?”
Rainbow quirked an eyebrow. “Why don’t you just use your magic? Your a unicorn and all.”
Galen gave a stare that said ‘are you serious?’ “I’ve been a unicorn for two hours. I don’t know shit about how to use magic.”
The cyan pegasus chuckled awkwardly. “Oh, hehe, right.”
Rainbow flew up to the knob and opened the door. As it creaked open, a small figure on a large pillow lifted it’s head. It spring up and backed into a corner in alarm. “Yip yip yip!”
Galen frowned and walked forward slowly. “Hey, come on Sam it’s me, Galen. I know I look different now, but it’s still me.”
The tiny dog kept barking as he got closer, trying to shrink further into the corner. Once he was close enough, he tried reaching out a hoof. The canine snapped at the appendage making him recoil away before trying again. Eventually, Galen managed to put his hoof on the dog’s head and began petting him. Sam stopped barking and sniffed him curiously before jumping up and licking his face.
“Agh! Alright, alright I get it, your glad it’s me! You can stop licking me now! Ugh, I think you got the inside of my mouth again.”
The mares watched the scene with smiles, Fluttershy especially squealing in delight. “Oh, he’s so adorable! I just want to hug him and never let go!”
Galen chuckled. “Yeah, he’s cute alright, until he starts barking and won’t shut up. Don’t take it personally if he’s still afraid of you, he’s really shy around strangers.
Fluttershy crept up to Sam carefully and leaned down to his eyes. “Hello little one. Don’t be afraid, I’m a friend.”
Sam sniffed her hoof experimentally, and jumped up and licked her face. “Oh! Well hello to you too! Oh you’re simply the cutest!”
Galen watched as Fluttershy scooped Sam up in her hooves before turning to others. “She has that thing where all animals love her doesn’t she?”
The five mares nodded their heads. “Figures. Well, that makes things easier. Sam is less shy if he has people-or ponies he likes around him.”
Fluttershy flew over to the others, Sam still in her hooves. “What breed is he? I can’t say I recognize it.”
“Chiweenie dog. A mixed breed between a Chihuahua and a dachshund. He loves to bark, but apart from that he’s a great dog.”
Galen looked up and groaned. “Hey, uh, Rainbow Dash, can you grab the dog food and pour a cup into his bowl? It’s in the cupboard up there.”
Rainbow grabbed a cup of the dog food and wrinkled her nose. “Ew, this stuff smells awful!”
“Yeah, dog food tends to smell gross. Just put it in his bowl there, he’ll eat it in like two minutes.”
Twilight was inspecting the machines that were up against the wall of the room. “Hey Galen, what are these things?”
“Oh, you mean the washer and dryer? They… well, wash and dry clothing, bedsheets, and occasionally shoes and belts.”
Twilight started in fascination at the machines, trying to get a look at every part of them she could.
Pinkie had somehow gotten onto the counter and was looking in one of the cupboards. “Ooh, candy!” She pulled out an orange bag and stuffed her hoof in.
“DON’T EAT THOSE!!!” Pinkie was startled by the shout and dropped the bag. Galen sighed in relief. “Sorry, just… leave those alone. They’re Tide pods. They go in the washer and dissolve into soap. They’re also toxic. If you ate one of them you could die.”
Pinkie looked at the spilled bag in shock. “Uhh… oopsie?” She quickly picked up the spilled pods and put them back.
Applejack looked at the bag warily. “Why would ya use somethin so dangerous to clean clothing?”
“Well, it’s only dangerous if you eat it, and the bag CLEARLY says not to eat them. Like, its labeled all over. Not only that, but the ingredients that are toxic are the same ones that increase the effectiveness of the soap.”
Twilight floated one of the pods down and examined it. “How does it dissolve in the washer?”
“Water goes into the washer when it’s turned on. See the clear material that’s holding the soap in? That’s what dissolves in the water. The rest of the soap gets mixed in with the water and clothing and cleans it. Then the water is drained out and you put the clothing in the dryer.”
“Fascinating! If ponies had these it would make the process of cleaning their clothing and beds so much easier!”
“Heh, well I’m sorry to say I don’t have a clue as to how these things work. I know how to operate one, but I don’t know the specifics. That’s gonna be true for most if not all of the stuff in my house.”
Twilight looked a little downcast at that. “Well, would you at least be willing to part with some of it for research?”
“As long as I get paid to donate it, sure. There’s a ton of junk I don’t use. I’m pretty sure we have a couple spare 3DS’ around here somewhere.”
Twilight chuckled. “You might just have to start explaining what things are as you mention them. What’s a 3DS?”
“A hand—or I guess hoof held video game console. I’m assuming you don’t know what video games are either?”
“Actually I do. There’s an arcade right here in Ponyville. The way our video games work is there’s a magic crystal that shows a moving image, and there are runes that make the buttons manipulate the image. I’m assuming yours work differently?”
“…very. Again, has a lot to do with technology. I’ll have to show you a video on the progression of human tech soon. Also, did you say that this town is called ‘Ponyville’?”
“Uh… yeah? Why?” Galen promptly burst into laughter. The six mares cast each other confused glances. “Hey, what’s so funny about the name huh?”
“Hahaha! Sorry… it’s just that, *snrk* you named a town after the name of your species? That’s like naming a city ‘humanopia or something! It’s utterly ridiculous!”
“Why is that so weird? A lot of towns and cities are named after pony words. Fillydelphia, Manehatten, Los Pegasus to name just a few.”
Galen stopped laughing, stared for a minute and then buried his face in his hooves. “Oh good god… those are just pony puns on cities in my world! Philadelphia, Manhattan, Los Angeles. Let me guess, your capital is a pun on Washington D.C.”
“No, our capital is called Canterlot. You don’t have a city named like that do you?”
“Oh lord, it’s a play on Camelot, that’s even worse somehow.”
“Seriously? Do you have a version of Cloudsdale too?”
“… I don’t think so actually. At least not in my country. Good to know there are at least SOME names that aren’t pony versions of cities I know.”
“I will admit, it is odd that so many of our settlements have similar names.”
“I’m just starting to think this is some weird alternate dimension I’ve ended up in. No way in hell am I on a planet where not only are physics different, but there are cities with eerily similar names to the ones I know.”
Galen sighed and walked out of the room. “You all are interested about my human tech right? I might not be able to explain it myself. But I know a video that can help you get a basic grasp on just what my stuff can do. I will warn you though, it uses a lot of terms you won’t understand. Just… try to soak up what you can.”
Rainbow groaned. “It isn’t gonna be a boring ‘educational’ thing is it?”
“That’s exactly what it is. Regardless, I’m sure even you’ll find something interesting about it.”
Galen lead the six mares into the living room and picked up the Roku stick. The girls sat down on the couch, although they were still a little off put on how it was made of leather. Sam jumped up and curled up next to Fluttershy.
Galen spoke into the remote. “Search: Past And Present Technology Then And Now.”
Galen clicked the first video that came up and sat back. “This is gonna talk about the progression of digital tech throughout history. You should be able to at least understand how some of it works, even if you won’t know the specifics.”
The video started up and a man began talking. The ponies settled in and listened with rapt attention.
The video went through all the different parts of digital tech. Twilight was absolutely fascinated by the video, and actually started drooling when digital reading was brought up. When she found out that there was a device that could store up to 2,000 books in it, she actually fainted. Galen looked on in concern until Rarity pulled out some smelling salts and woke her up.
Rainbow was trying to decide whether she was interested or bored. On one hoof, the things the video was talking about were super cool. On the other, she didn’t understand anything that was being said. All she could get was that this digital stuff was beyond anything Pony kind had even thought of.
The rest of the mares were both fascinated and confused. The man never seemed to explain what a ‘byte’ or a ‘hertz’ was. All Galen said on the matter was that a byte was a way of quantifying storage and a hertz was a way of showing how fast a device could process information.
As the video ended, the mares, mostly Twilight, started chattering excitedly. “That’s incredible! A device you can hold in your hoof that can solve math equations, hyper advanced video devices, and—EEEEEEEEEE! A device that can store th-thousands of books! I NEED one of those!”
Rainbow flew around the room. “I don’t understand most of what they said, but this ‘digital’ stuff sounds awesome!”
Applejack gave a smirk. “It WAS mighty impressive.”
Rarity gave a chuckle. “While this is usually Twilight’s sort of thing, even I must admit that the possibility for technology like this to make its way into Equestria sounds very exiting.”
“Well, depending on how long I stay here, that might be able to happen. Now, I think that’s enough education for one day. How about I introduce you girls to my Xbox?”
Pinkie pooped up next to the stallion. “What’s an ‘Xbox’? Is it a box made of X’s?”
“…No. it’s a video game console. It’s up in my room. I’ll just go and grab a couple controllers and…SHIT!!!”
The girls jumped at the sudden outburst. “Um… what’s wrong darling?”
“I just realized! How am I gonna play games without hands! That’s it, my life is over! No video games! I’m in hell!”
Applejack scoffed. “An ah thought RARITY was dramatic. It’s not the end of the world sugarcube. Ah’m sure ya can find another way ta pass time.”
“You don’t understand! Playing video games is my favorite thing to do! Gasp! Wait, Twilight, you can do magic right?”
“Um, yeah. It’s my special talent actually.”
“Great! Is transformation within the realm of possibility for you?”
Twilight gave a nervous smile. “I… think I know what you’re trying to say. While it might be possible to turn you back into a human, transformation spells are incredibly complex, and unless I have an advanced understanding of the anatomy of a creature I’m transforming the target into, it can be very dangerous.”
Galen raced upstairs and came back down with a large book in his mouth. He dropped it at Twilight’s hooves. “Here. A book on human anatomy. Let me know what I need to do to help, but I NEED to have hands again.”
Twilight opened the book and frowned. “Um… Galen? I can’t understand any of this. I… think we have different written languages.”
Galen’s eye twitched a little. “Are you fucking serious? Fine. FINE. I guess we’ll need to translate, which shouldn’t be too hard since we speak the same language. (For some reason). Sorry for going a little crazy, but I REALLY want to be able to play video games.”
Twilight gave a sheepish smile. “No… it’s alright. It’s the least I can do to not only pay you back for bringing you here, but also for everything you’ve shown me and the girls.”
Twilight looked outside. “Wow, it’s getting kind of late. I think me and the girls should start heading home. Thank you again for showing us around your house!”
“Hey, I gotta get friendly with my new neighbors right? I don’t wanna be known as the local grumpy hermit.”
Twilight gave a laugh. “I’m glad we could get along so well. We’ll see you tomorrow Galen. I’ll try to start translating this tonight.”
“Yeah… I’ll help out with that tomorrow. See ya.”
The six mares exited the house, Fluttershy found it hard to let go of Sam, but eventually she left too. Galen shut the window with a sigh. “Well, I guess this is my life now. I think I’m gonna go cry in a corner about my lack of gaming ability.”
As he was going back upstairs, a thought crossed his mind. “I really should try to let my family know just what kind of situation I’m in. Maybe a FaceTime would work.”
With a new plan in mind, the unicorn went upstairs to contact his Mother once again.
Galen sighed. Working his phone was a lot more difficult with hooves. If it weren’t for SIRI he wouldn’t be able to use it at all. He thanked his past self for not putting a password on the device because that would lock him out in his current state.
He had been staring at the phone for longer than he could recall. Eventually he sighed and picked it up. “Siri, call mom.”
“Calling: Mom.”
The phone range couple of times before a voice was heard on the other end. “Galen? Are you alright? You haven’t contacted me since you sent me those drawings.”
“Would you believe me if I told you they were actual pictures I took?”
“What’s up with you? You’ve said a lot of weird things today, even for you. I know you must be stressed out, being so far away from home… spiritually anyway, but you’ve been acting very odd.”
Galen sighed. Here was the make or break part. “…look, can we do a FaceTime? It might show you just what kind of impossible situation I’m in. Not like the difficult impossible, but the this literally isn’t possible impossible.”
“I don’t see how a FaceTime is going to explain anything that you can’t just say.”
“Well I don’t think you’d believe me if I said ‘hey mom I’ve somehow been turned into a two foot tall green unicorn and thrust into a world that looks like something you’d see on Disney Junior.’”
“…Galen, did you get into the wine cabinet? I thought you knew better than that.”
“I can assure you I’m completely sober. Look, just… FaceTime okay?”
“…alright. Just give me a moment.”
Galen hung up and a second later got the notification for a FaceTime call. He took a deep breath and picked up.
“Uh… hey mom.”
“…Galen. This joke isn’t funny anymore. I’m going to give you three seconds to turn that filter off.”
“Mom… filters don’t work like that. They can’t straight up animate something like this. And even if they can…”
Galen knocked his front hooves together, eliciting a hollow clopping sound.
“I’m pretty sure they don’t change sound.”
“Then you’re using some sort of animation hack or something! There’s no way in hell that what I’m looking at is real!”
Galen picked up his phone and jumped up onto his desk. He held it out the window for his mother to see. The sun was just dipping below the horizon on a small village. Nearby, a gloomy forest loomed at the edge of the civilization. His mother could just make out other equines trotting or flying around the town.
“How do you explain this? You can clearly see my windowsill, and right outside it is this!”
“Bu-bu-I….”
There was a thud from his mother’s side of the line. Galen looked to see her phone staring up at the ceiling.
“She fainted. Never seen her do that before.”
There was shuffling, and the video on the phone adjusted to his mother’s face again. “Galen? Sorry I scared you. I just…what?! How? Are you sure this isn’t some super complex hack you’ve put on your phone?”
“Swear on my life.”
“…I need to sit down.”
His mother sat down in a chair and sighed. “We’re staying at your grandmother’s for now. I don’t know what happened to you and the house, but we’ll try and get you back as soon as we can.”
“I think that lays more on my end of things. I met some of the residents today. And by met I mean I caught them stalking me. One of them apparently brought me here on accident somehow and is trying to help me get back. I doubt there’s anything you can do from your end.”
“How did they ‘accidentally’ transport an entire building and its foundation so far away?!”
“They didn’t give me much of an explanation apart from a magical mishap. I kid you not, they believe magic is not only real, but an element of science.”
Galen’s mother’s eye twitched a little. “…magic, of course.”
Galen noticed the involuntary movement and decided to change subjects. “In other news, the power, water, WiFi and cell reception are still going strong somehow. I actually have a hunch about that, if you’ll help me out.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Well, I was hoping you could drive back to where the house used to be and see if you can connect to the WiFi. If dad asks where you’re going make something up. I want to be able to talk to him about this myself.”
“…your father’s asleep. He’s done a lot of talking with the police today. They’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. The news caught wind of this too, and he’s expected to be on for an interview tomorrow. Lord knows he tried to avoid it, but they wouldn’t stop pestering him until he accepted.”
“Great, the news. Make sure they don’t learn about anything beyond how the house is missing.”
“I don’t plan to. I’m grabbing the keys now. Before I go, I need to know. Is Sam there with you? Whenever your father wasn’t worrying over you he was worrying about that dog. For someone who didn’t want to get a pet he’s sure become attached.”
Galen gave a chuckle. “Yeah, I knew that would happen the day we got him.”
His mother sighed. “I don’t know how you’re so calm about this.”
“I got my freak out sessions over with earlier. Now I’m just accepting anything, whether it makes sense or not, and not much is making sense anymore.”
His mother shook her head. “I swear Galen, you’re the most adaptable person I know. I’ll call you back when I get there. I can’t go more than halfway down the driveway, there’s police tape blocking the rest off.”
“If I’m right about this it shouldn’t make a difference. Ill talk to you in a minute.”
Galen shut the FaceTime off and sighed. “Well she took that better than I thought. Now I just have to break the news to the rest of my family, and maybe my friends. Damn, this is going to be so humiliating, Jason’s never gonna let this go if I tell him.”
He looked out the window at the stars. He thought he saw something moving in the corner of the window and shrugged it off. Probably just another overly curious local. He had to admit, the night sky was a hell of a lot prettier than back home. Then again, with so much less light and air pollution, that was a given.
He stared out at the night sky for a couple more minutes before his phone rang. “Hey mom, what’s the news?”
“Your hunch was right! I’m connected to our WiFi! How is that pos—nevermind.”
“Yeah, I think we’re gonna have to revaluate what ‘possible’ is. In any case, that might explain how I still have power and internet. My guess is there’s some sort of connection between home and where I am. It’s too weak to see or go through, but the internet signal and electricity can still pass through.”
“That’s convenient for you. I know you’d probably go insane without those things.”
“I already had a mini mental breakdown when I realized I can’t play video games with hooves, I don’t know what I’d do without TV or music.”
“Further proof that you have an unhealthy addiction. No video games will be good for you.”
“I’ve been turned into a magical pony, and am in what is most likely another dimension, and you’re still on about that?”
“Yes. What kind of mother would I be if I wasn’t?”
“A sane one. Hey mom, I’m sure you probably want to go home and think about all this, so I’ll let you go. I’ll be fine, the locals here seem to be incredibly welcoming and friendly, if the six I met today are the norm.”
“Okay, make sure to call your father and grandmother tomorrow, they’re both worried sick.”
“I’m sure they are. I’ll talk to you later mom.”
Galen hung up the phone and got up into bed. He got under his covers before groaning and pulling the comforter off. “Great. Didn’t occur to me that fur would make me hotter. Well guess I’m ditching the comforter until it gets colder. Alexa, shuffle songs by Falkkone.”
Galen settled into bed. He knew it was odd that he could fall asleep to a genre of music that was literally called ‘intense symphonic metal’, but genre of music didn’t affect his sleep. Whether it was lo-fi or death metal, he’d fallen asleep to it before.
Lyra Heartstrings the unicorn was ecstatic. After years of being ridiculed by her peers and even her best friend, she finally had proof that humans were real! She had been walking home from the market when the element bearers had passed her by on their way home from their visit to the mysterious new building. She had overheard Pinkie Pie saying something about the resident’s ‘super awesome human tech’. Not only that, but Twilight was carrying a book that looked like it was about anatomy. The picture on the front looked a lot like her own sketches of humans!
Naturally she couldn’t leave this be. She went home to tell her housemate Bon-Bon that she would be out for a while and immediately went to the new house in town. She heard talking from the second floor so she cast a wall walking spell on herself and went to investigate. Inside the room she found a green unicorn stallion talking to a strange device. Upon closer investigation, it was a video of a human! What was the biggest shock to her was that the pony kept calling the human ‘mom’! Clearly this pony had been a human. With so much knowledge about her lifelong passion within hooves grasp, she was over the moon with excitement. The mint green unicorn climbed down and slunk home as night fell, determined to learn all she could from this human-turned pony the next day.
Twilight had bid her friends a good night and headed back to the library. She knew that it would be easier to translate the anatomy book with Galen around, but she was confident that she could make some headway before the next day.
Twilight walked through the door of the library and was greeted to the curious face of Spike. “So how did it go? Was anycreature living there?”
“Oh, hi Spike! Actually, there was! He showed us all sorts of amazing things inside his house, and even gave us a small history lesson about his devices! It’s absurd how advanced his civilization is compared to Equestria! They have a device you can hold in your hooves that can store thousands of books! THOUSANDS!!”
“Wow, that sounds awesome! So, uh, what kind of creature is he?”
“That’s the complicated part. He’s a unicorn, but apparently he wasn’t until I accidentally brought him here. Do you know about those ‘humans’ that Lyra’s always talking about?”
Spike widened his eyes. “Sweet Celestia he’s doomed.”
Twilight gave a chuckle. “We warned him about her, so hopefully he’ll keep an eye out. In any case, I need to send a letter to the Princess. Spike, if you may?”
Spike pulled out a scroll and quill and got ready to write. “Dear Princess Celestia, the building that appeared in Ponyville is inhabited by a creature called a ‘human’ that has been turned into a unicorn. He goes by the name ‘Galen’, and has so far been kind to me as well as my friends. He also possess technology far beyond anything anycreature has ever conceived! He showed my friends and I a small film explaining the history of what he called ‘digital technology’.”
“There are a few things you should know about him however. For one, he eats meat. He has stated that his species doesn’t eat sentient beings, but he keeps cow meat in his icebox. Apparently cows are not smart where he comes from. He also knows of the ancient curse words of ponykind, and uses them rather often, especially when distressed. He has expressed wishes to return home, and since I am responsible for his being here, I wish to help him in this endeavor. If you have any knowledge that may help us, I ask you to share it with me.”
“Galen also appears to have a different written language from ours. He has given me a book on the anatomy of his species in hopes that I will be able to transform him back into a human, but the script is indecipherable to me at the moment.”
“I will send you updates as we learn more about him and his situation. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Spike finished the scroll off and sent it away in a puff of green flames.
“Wow! This guy sounds pretty cool, especially his super cool technology! Are you going back tomorrow? Can I come?”
Twilight rolled her eyes at her adopted brother’s enthusiasm. “I suppose so. Just be careful around his stuff, we wouldn’t want to break anything he can’t replace.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be super careful!”
Twilight smiled and brought the book she was carrying over to a desk. She pulled up an Equestrian dictionary and started scanning between the two books. After about five minutes, a belch was heard from behind her.
“Twilight, the princess wrote back!”
Twilight eagerly opened up the scroll and read it. “Dear Twilight, this ‘human’ you speak of has made me rather curious. I cannot say that I envy his situation, and I will help all that I can in order to send him back home. However, I am also interested in this technology you state that he possesses. Perhaps that if we were to assist him in his return home, then he would be willing to share some of his advanced technology. I have cleared my schedule three days from now, and I will be coming to meet him in person. I wish to see just what kind of pony he is. You have stated that he has been kind and understanding, but I wish to judge for myself wether he is a threat to my little ponies or not. Please notify this Galen that I will be visiting him soon. Your Mentor, Princess Celestia.”
Twilight dropped the scroll in surprise. “The princess is coming to see Galen in three days! We’ll have to tell him tomorrow so he’ll have time to prepare!”
Spike belched put another scroll and Twilight snatched it up. “P.S. Luna has expressed wishes to meet him as well. She and I will be coming together.”
“Both Princesses?! I hope Galen will be ready.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Come on Twilight, the princesses just want to meet him. It’s not like it’s some huge event! As long as he acts like himself and doesn’t be disrespectful he’ll be fine.”
Twilight sighed. “You’re right. But we still need to let him know first thing tomorrow. I’m going to continue trying to translate this book, let me know when dinner is ready.”
Twilight hunched over the desk in focus. Even after an hour. She hadn’t made much progress. There were certain symbols that only appeared at the beginning of a sentence or a certain word, and it was confusing her quite a bit. What she did notice is that their punctuation was the same, and that the length of the words were similar to the length of Equestrian words.
Twilight sighed as she continued to analyze the text. “Maybe I should wait for Galen after all. He can just tell me what those words say, and we’ll go from there.”
Spike came out of the kitchen and set a bowl of soup down on Twilight’s desk. “Come on Twilight, take a break. You said that he’s gonna help you out tomorrow right? Just wait until you can make some actual progress.”
“I… guess you’re right. I just can’t make any progress myself! Every species on Equus has spoken and written the same language for so long that the process of translation has been lost to time, so I have no idea where to begin!”
“Chill out Twilight, I’m sure you’ll make some progress tomorrow!”
Twilight gave a small smile. “Thanks Spike. It’s just that Galen has impressed me so much already, that I was kind of hoping to impress him you know?”
“Haha! You got a thing for him or something?”
Twilight groaned and rolled her eyes. “I’ve known him a day Spike. Of course not. Besides, even if I did, that kind of interest would most likely freak him out.”
“Yeah I guess you’re right.”
Spike and Twilight are in silence for a while, before Spike spoke up. “So do you think Galen has any comics?”
“Of course that’s where your mind would go. I’m sure it’s a possibility, but he hasn't said anything about that.”
Twilight gave Spike a side look and smirked. “He did say he had video games though.”
“Really?! Awesome! I wonder what they’re like! Where would he keep the machines?”
“He actually told us he had a video game device that you can hold in your hooves. Or claws, in your case.”
Spike looked absolutely giddy. “I can’t wait to meet him tomorrow! This’ll be so cool!”
Twilight rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t say she didn’t blame him. Her mind drifted towards how the princesses would react to Galen and his technology.
“I hope he makes a good impression. He’ll be living under their rule while he’s here anyway. Wait a minute…”
Twilight sighed. “Galen’s not going to like all that paperwork.”
Twilight and her friends met up the next morning at Sugarcube Corner to get breakfast and discuss what they were going to do at Galen’s house that day.
“The first thing I want to do is let him know that the princesses will be visiting him in three days. He should be ready to greet them.”
“Wait, the princess are coming here to meet him? Why?”
Twilight gave Rainbow a half lidded gaze. “Because he’s an alien that has technology beyond our comprehension?”
“Oh. Right, that’s a pretty good reason for wanting to meet him.”
“Anyway, I also want to go over our written languages with him today. I couldn’t make any progress with the book he gave me last night!”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Well of course you couldn’t. You had no way of deciphering it without Galen to help you. Honestly darling I wonder what the both of you were thinking last night.”
“Hehe… yeah, I guess it was pretty silly of us to think that I could understand it on my own.”
Twilight flipped through her notes. “I also want to go over our different diets to make sure there’s nothing that’s toxic to any of us. According to Fluttershy ponies can eat meat, as… unsettling as that is. But we don’t know what else he has that could be inedible. Not to mention he might not be able to eat some foods ponies do.”
Twilight went though her list one more time to make sure she had gotten everything and set it down. “Spike is also going to be coming with us today. He was curious about Galen’s video games. What about you girls?”
“I want to get a look at his wardrobe. I didn’t get a chance yesterday and I’m simply dying to see what human fashion is like!”
“Oh, I want to spend some more time with Sam. He’s such a cute little puppy!”
“I want to see what kinds of sports humans play! I bet they have some super cool ideas we could bring to Equestria!”
“I wanna see what his cool outdoor bathtub is like! It had bubbles and colored lights and so many super awesome things!”
“Ah’m actually a might curious about the history of these here humans. The fact that their technology grew so much in just a couple hundred years was crazy! Ah’d love ta see what else they’ve done!”
“Well those are all fine ideas. Just try not to overwhelm him with questions and requests. I’m going to go get Spike and we’ll be on our way.”
After Twilight grabbed Spike from the library, the group headed off to Galen’s house. As the building came into view. They noticed a certain Green Unicorn walking up to it.
“Oh no… Lyra! What are you doing here?”
Lyra turned her head and smiled sheepishly upon seeing the six mares and dragon. “Uh, hi! So I couldn’t help but overhear you girls talking about a human living in this house yesterday, so I went to investigate and you were right! They’re definitely a human! I want to meet them myself! I have so many questions for him!!”
Twilight groaned. She was worried that this would happen. And she knew that Lyra wasn’t going to back off. “Listen Lyra. This human is a long ways away from their home. We’re trying to help them adjust, and you bombarding them with every question under the sun isn’t going to help matters. Since I know you’re not going to go away, you can meet him, but only if you promise to let us do most of the talking. You can ask him a question or two, but please don’t overwhelm him.”
Lyra huffed. “How come you get to ask all the questions huh?”
“Because A) we’ve already talked with him, so we know him better than you do and B) we’re not human crazed lunatics.”
Lyra grumbled. “Fine. At least I’ll get to meet him…”
All of a sudden, the window that the girls used yesterday opened and Galen popped his head out. “Huh. Wasn’t expecting you until around noon. Come on in I guess, I’m just making breakfast. And by making breakfast I mean eating cereal out of the box because I can’t reach anything else in this god forsaken body. Wait, who’s the green one? And is that a bipedal lizard?”
“Hey, I’m a dragon, not a lizard.”
Galen stared at Spike in shock for a moment before smirking. “Metal. Just don’t burn my house down and we’re cool.”
Galen glanced at the vibrating green unicorn in worry. “Seriously, who is she? She looks like she’s having a seizure.”
Twilight gave Lyra a nervous glance. “That’s… Lyra. The human fanatic we told/warned you about.”
“Shit. I can’t get to my aspirin with these hooves. Yo Lyra, please try to be calm, I do not think you want your first human experience to be them suffering an aneurysm.”
“We told her that she’d have to tone it down on the fanfillying if she wants to come in.”
“I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!”
Everyone looked to Lyra with exasperation. “Hehe, sorry, I’m just so exited! A real human and their house just a walk away! This is the greatest day of my life!”
Galen took that in with a bored expression. “Yeeeeeah, cool. Look, one question every five minutes. Nothing more or I’ll kick you out. It looks like I'm stuck here for a while, so I'm sure you’ll get your answers in time.”
“Of course! Sorry again, it’s just that I’ve spent so long researching humans! Everypony thinks I’m crazy because of it, but now who’s the crazy one huh?!”
The unanimous answer was “still you.”
“Okay, enough gawking at Lyra’s insanity. Come on in, let me just shut off what I’m watching.”
Pinkie spoke up. “Actually, I’m kind of curious as to what it is you find so funny about the videos you watch. It must be hilarious for you to laugh at them so much!”
“Eh, I’ll keep it on if you want, but the sense of humor in these videos is basically unstructured chaos and absurdity.”
The rest of the mares giggled. “Then I’m sure Pinkie will love them!”
“Suit yourself. Hey Twilight, you manage to figure out anything from that book I gave you?”
“No! Apart from realizing that we use the same punctuation, I can’t make heads or tails of what anything in here says.”
“Figured as much. Well you and I can compare alphabets I guess. Anything else?”
“Oh yeah! Princesses Celestia and Luna are coming to meet you in three days. I thought we should let you know as soon as possible so you’d have time to prepare.”
Lyra looked at Twilight. “The princesses are coming to visit?”
Galen raised a brow. “Huh, didn’t know this was a monarchy. Why wouldn’t the king or queen come?”
“What do you mean king and queen? The princesses are the leaders of the country. We don’t have a king or queen.”
“…whatever, I’m sure it doesn’t matter. So they’re coming to meet me in three days? The house is already clean, so I guess I’m already prepared.”
Twilight blinked. “You’re not going to prepare anything special for them?”
“Why would I do that?”
Twilights eye twitched. “Because they’re the leaders of the country?”
“Hey I’m not technically one of their subjects. If they’re coming to meet me that’s cool, but I’m going to treat them like I’d treat anyone else. No reason to go over the top. Honestly there never is no matter who it is. I like to keep things casual.”
“You don’t do ‘casual’ when the princesses are involved!!!”
“Why? They malevolent or something?”
“What? No! They run the entire country and watch over all of us every single day! They raise the sun and moon every day and night! They’ve kept Equestria safe for over 1000 years! That’s why you should treat them with respect!”
Galen’s eyes widened. “Wait, you’re telling me these two raise and lower the fucking sun and moon, and that they’ve been alive over 1000 years?! Are they fucking gods or some shit?!”
Twilight put her hoof to her chin in thought. “Now that you mention it, I’m not sure. I’ve never asked. I guess it would make sense.”
“That‘s… honestly kinda sick. I’ve never been an overly religious person, but I do believe in god. To have actual deities living among mortals is pretty cool. I guess I get why this place is so peaceful now.”
Twilight gave Galen a look. “Now do you realize that you have to make preparations for the princesses?”
“Nope.”
Twilight nearly choked. “Wh-wh-why?!”
“Think of it like this. You say these princesses have been around over 1000 years?”
“Yeah?”
“Do all of their subjects treat them the way you do?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t we treat them with our utmost respect?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that they’d like to be treated like a normal person-or pony in This case without all the worship? After so long, that shits gotta get tiring, maybe even annoying.”
Twilight seemed to be at a loss for words at that. “I… I… I don’t know.”
Applejack put a hoof to he chin. “Maybe he’s got a point Twi. Ah know that if ah were one o the princesses, ah would get tired of everypony fawnin over me 24/7.”
“B-but they’re not normal ponies! They have to be treated with respect!”
“Okay A) I never said that I wasn’t going to treat them with respect. My method of showing respect just happens to be acting chill and welcoming. And B) sure they’re not your average pony, but that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m saying they might want to be treated like one. And hey, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I’ll try not to get smited by them or whatever.”
Twilight appeared to fume for a minute before sighing. “I don’t like it, but I guess if you really think the princesses will be okay with you acting so casual around them, there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”
“Glad to hear it. Now come inside so Lyra will stop ranting about ‘meeting a human.’”
The mares looked off to the side to see that Lyra was pacing around giving herself a pep talk. “It’s going to be fine! He seems nice, and you have everything to gain from this! Oh, but what if he doesn’t like me?! What if-“
Spike clapped his claws together In front of the mint green pony’s face. “Come on crazy mare, we’re going inside.”
“Really?! Ok!”
Lyra gulped and climbed through the window after the others. Upon entering and seeing all of the thing inside the house, she began hyperventilating and shaking before passing out on the ground.
Galen poked her sleeping form with a hoof. “Is she gonna be alright?”
Rainbow waved a hoof. “Yeah, she probably just got too exited. Hey Rares, we need the smelling salts again!”
Lyra opened her eyes to find Galen's face above her. "You good now? That's the second time someone's fainted in my house and I'm getting kind of sick of it."
Lyra scrambled to her hooves and smiled awkwardly. "Yep, I'm fine! Just a little exited, heheh..."
Galen rolled his eyes and looked over to Twilight. "We'll go over our alphabets later, and if we don't end up having time, I can just give you a sheet of all of our letters, both uppercase and lowercase."
"What are uppercase and lowercase?"
"...I think I get why you were having so much trouble. Uppercase letters are used in the first letter of the first word in a sentence, or as the first letter in a person, (or pony I guess) place or thing. They're also used at the beginning of every word in a title. Lowercase letters are used everywhere else."
"That's so unnecessarily complicated! Why would you write like that?"
Galen shrugged. "It helps important words stand out. Apart from that I don't know, but it's not too awful hard to understand."
"I... guess. Anyways, an alphabet to work with would be a big help."
"You know, I've been thinking, if I’m a unicorn, can I do that crazy magic stuff like you?”
“Of course! Every unicorn can do at least basic levitation.”
“And, can this levitation spell say, put pressure on an object?”
“Um, yeah. Where are you going with this?”
“Fuck. Yes. I think I’ve found an alternative to hands. I want to learn how to do that as soon as possible. Like, tomorrow soon.”
“Really? Great! I was going to ask if you wanted me to teach you anyway. Does that mean you don’t want me to work on that transformation spell then? I was actually kind of exited to do a project like that.”
“Oh no don’t get me wrong, I still want my human body back. I’m just glad I’ll be able to function semi normally until then.”
“I see. Well I hope that we can cross our little language barrier soon so I can get working on it.”
Galen and Twilight stepped into the living room from the hallway to find the girls and Spike watching the TV with amused or confused expressions. They looked at the screen to see what they were watching.
“For a guy in a suit, you’re pretty fuckin stupid!
“Hey fuck you I didn’t become a billionaire by being an idiot! I have four degrees in-“
Galen quickly snatched up the remote and turned the TV off. “Whoops. Forgot I was watching that.”
Pinkie was giggling like mad. “That was funny!”
“Ah didn’t quite understand what was so funny bout it.”
Galen chuckled. “Yeah, that’s essentially my sense of humor. Complete randomness that somehow makes me laugh.”
Spike looked up at Twilight in confusion. “Twilight? What does ‘Fuck’ mean?”
Galen snorted in shock and amusement. “Yeah, that’s not a word you should be saying kid.”
“Why? Is it mean?”
“Um, in certain scenarios yeah. It’s just an all around vulgar word. Humans have a lot of those, and we like to use them a lot. We really shouldn’t, but it’s a habit that’s pretty much impossible to break.”
Rarity scrunched up her muzzle. “Why would you use such words if they are as inappropriate as you say?”
“Because they make certain things funnier, and it’s a way to vent stress if you’re mad or hurt.”
The white mare flicked her mane. “Well I’ll stay away from them if they are as uncouth as you say. Well enough of that darling, I’ve been wanting to see your wardrobe! I’m so exited to see what human fashion is like!”
“Uh… sorry to break it to you, but I’m not big on fashion. I only have a couple of fancy outfits, and they’re for special occasions only.”
“Well I hardly see a problem with that. That’s very normal for a pony.”
“Yeah, but I figured you expected me to have some huge fancy wardrobe the way you were talking about it. I mean my mom has quite a few dresses, but if you’re gonna look at them don’t ruin them. I’m not gonna be the one to tell her a magical unicorn ruined her favorite dress.”
Rarity pressed her hooves to her cheeks and gave an *eeee!!!*. “Oh I simply must investigate! Where can I find your mother’s dresses?”
“Her room is upstairs, last door on the right. I repeat, if you ruin any of them, you’re replacing them.”
Rarity bolted up the stairs in excitement, and Galen looked back to the others. “Any other requests?” Four hooves and a claw shot up.
“Sigh, alright, one at a time. Rainbow?”
“I want to see what kind of sports you humans have! If they’re awesome enough, maybe we can bring them to Equestria!”
“Simple enough.” Galen turned on the TV again and went to YouTube. Saying ‘football’ into the remote, a multitude of videos on the American sport came up. “Go nuts. I’m not a big sports guy, so I’ll leave that to you. Applejack?”
“Well, ah was wonderin if ya knew anythin bout the history of where ya come from. Ah feel like ah’d get ta understand ya humans more if ah knew more bout yer past.”
Galen chuckled. The poor naive fool. “I can’t tell you much off the top of my head, but I have quite a few history books in my room if you want to help Twilight and I close this written language barrier. There’s also a hell of a lot of history shows and videos on the TV I could show you sometime.”
“How far back does yer history go?”
“Well that’s complicated. The oldest recorded history we’ve discovered dates back to around 5,000 years ago, but humans were around before that. It’s just that whatever evidence we’ve found of humans from before that is indecipherable at the moment.”
“…wow. Ah’ve got a lot ta learn ah guess.”
“Depends on what you want to know. History’s extremely convoluted. I’ll show you some videos sometime. What do you want Pinkie?”
“I wanna go check out you’re awesome outside bathtub! The one that makes bubbles and has pretty lights!”
“You mean the hot tub? Sure, just don’t press anything if you don’t know what it does. And I wouldn’t stay in there too long. It’s really hot and you could get dizzy or even faint from the heat.”
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie pulled a towel and swimming goggles out of her mane and ran out the back door. Galen stared blankly. “So, is her hair like a portal to a pocket dimension or something?”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “Now that you mention it, she does seem to pull a lot of stuff out of there. How does that make sense?”
Applejack chuckled. “It’s best not ta question Pinkie’s antics.”
Twilight’s eye twitched. “But it doesn’t make sense!”
Galen shrugged. “Fair enough. I’m a pony in magical cartoon land. Logic is dead to me already. What do you want Lyra?”
“I was just wondering if I could go look around your house! I know you probably don’t want me bothering you too much, so I’ll just look around for now. So much human stuff! I could write a book with all this information!”
“I’ll tell you what I told the others. Don’t break anything and we’re good. Also before going into the kitchen you should know two things. A) Humans are omnivores. You’re going to find meat if you look in the fridge or freezer. B) Where I come from cows are dumb animals, so don’t freak out if you find beef.”
Lyra’s face turned slightly greener. “…y-yep. Thanks for the heads up. I’m… gonna go check out the bathroom first.”
Lyra sped off, leaving Galen behind with the others. “I swear you ponies don’t know what you’re missing out on. Meat is awesome. Especially bacon. Bacon slaps.”
Fluttershy looked up from Sam, who was curled up next to her on the couch. “Oh we have hay bacon. Is your bacon different?”
“Yeah. It’s a fatty slice of pig meat, and the best god damn thing on the planet. Steak and ham are also up there, but not quite as good as bacon.”
Rainbow looked up from the game she was watching on the TV. “Oh, so THAT’S what Gilda meant when she was talking about how I was missing out on ‘real’ bacon!”
Galen cocked a brow. “Gilda?”
“My old foalhood friend. She’s a gryphon, so she eats meat like… you do, I guess. She was always trying to make me jealous about how I couldn’t eat meat. Which I mean I guess I know I can now.”
“Well then it’s settled. As soon as I figure out how to cook in this body, you’re trying bacon. All of you. I refuse to let you miss out on such a delicacy.”
Fluttershy gave a small smile, and the other ponies in the room gave reluctant agreements. “Alright cool. Oh, crap! Sorry… Spike was it? I forgot all about you!”
“It’s okay, I’m used to it.”
Galen blinked. “Dude, that’s a little depressing. Anyway, what did you want?”
“I want you to show me some of your video games! I bet they’re awesome!”
“Hm, how old did you say you were?”
“I’m ten!”
“Well then that narrows the list down quite a bit.”
“Huh? What does my age have to do with that?”
“A lot of the games I have are, well, I’d describe them as violently inappropriate for your age.”
Spike crossed his arms and huffed. “They can’t be THAT bad…”
Galen gave the drake a blank expression. “Ever witnessed a living being get ripped in half before?”
Spike’s eyes widened. “…on second thought, a smaller selection is fine.”
“Glad you agree. Do you have any fighting games here?”
“Oh yeah! We have a couple at the arcade.”
“Well then I’m going to show you Super Smash Bros.”
“Is that a fighting game? It sounds cool!”
“It is. It’s a game that has characters from a ton of different video game series. I think there’s actually around 190 game series represented in the game. If you include all the assist trophies, costumes and spirits anyway.”
“190?! I don’t even think that many games exist here!”
Galen led Spike down to the basement. “Why are we going down here?”
“Because it’s where the Switch is.” Galen turned on the lights and hopped down the stairs, Spike following. They got to the bottom and Galen led Spike to a couch. He went up to a device that had red and blue controllers attached to it and plucked them off. He handed them to Spike and turned the TV on.
Spike looked to the controllers in awe and confusion. “These have so many buttons! The games I play only have one or two and a joystick.”
“The games you play weren’t designed for opposable digits.” The Tv started up and the screen displayed a list of games on it.
Galen pointed to one of the buttons. “You press that one to open up the game.”
Spike opened the game up and Galen directed him through the menu. The drake was in awe at the detail of the game. He was used to 8 and 16 bit graphics, so this was crazy for him. He got into the character select screen and his mind finally broke.
“Th-there’s so many characters!”
“Yeah, Smash Ultimate probably has the most characters in any fighting game. There’s 88 of them, and we’re apparently getting one more.”
The dragon’s jaw dropped. “88?! Our games only have like 8 characters!”
“Yeah that seems about right. Again, this game has a huge roster even by my standards. Go ahead and pick a character. If you can’t decide, there’s always the random option.”
Spike looked through the characters for a bit until he found one that caught his interest. “Is that a dragon?”
“Oh Ridley? I mean yeah? I don’t know a lot about Metroid, the series he’s from. What I do know is that he’s a space pirate and the arch enemy of Samus, the character you play as in those games.”
“So he’s a bad guy? He sounds cool I guess.”
“Yeah, he’s a bad guy. One of Nintendo’s most ruthless villains from what I’ve heard about him.”
“Nintendo?”
“The company that makes most of the games the characters in here are from.”
Spike selected Ridley as his character and picked a stage. As soon as the match started up Galen paused it and showed Spike the controls. The drake was a little overwhelmed with all of it, but eventually he got the basic gist of how to play.
“This is pretty different from the fighting games at the arcade. Instead of getting your opponent’s health down all the way you have to hit them off the screen.”
“Yeah, Smash is unique. I have traditional fighting games like that, but they’re a bit too violent to show you.”
Eventually, the CPU got a final hit in and knocked Spike’s character into the blast zone for the final time.
“Aw man!”
“Hey it was your first time. Besides, I had the CPU set to level 5. The default is level three, so don’t feel too bad.”
“Well I lost, but it was fun! It’s so much more complicated than the games at the arcade, so many buttons!”
“Well it was designed with fingers in mind. I wish I could take a crack at it, but well, you know.”
“Man, Button Mash would be really jealous if he found out about this.”
“Who now?”
“Oh, Button is this colt I met at the arcade a couple weeks ago. He’s like the best player ever! If he found out about a game you can’t play with hooves he’s be pretty upset.”
“Ah. So even ponies have gamers. Well I guess I could visit the arcade sometime if I can’t wait until I’m able to use my own systems again. Right now the only game I can play is Geometry Dash because it only has one button.”
Galen chatted with Spike for a while longer while he played the game. Eventually he scored a win and got exited.”
“I finally did it! I think I’m really getting the hang of this!”
“Heh, good for you. Keep playing if you want, I’m gonna head back upstairs.”
Leaving Spike to the addiction that was the Nintendo Switch, Galen headed back upstairs to find Lyra levitating a bag down from one of the cupboards.
“Oh, hi! Do you know what this is? I can’t read the label.”
“Oh sweet! It’s my beef jerky!”
“B-b-beef?!”
Lyra dropped the bag from her aura in shock and Galen snatched it up off the ground. “Yeah. It’s dried beef strips flavored with salt and other stuff. It’s crazy good.”
He pulled a strip out and took a bite out of it. He held a piece up to the mint unicorn. “Want a taste?”
Lyra was about to deny it as quickly as possible, but stopped. W-well, it IS human food. Even though it’s *shudder* cow meat. He did say that cows couldn’t talk where he’s from though. If I want to learn everything about humans, I have to taste their food eventually right?
Lyra gave a deep breath. “O-okay. I’ll try a small piece.”
“Huh. Didn’t think you’d actually be open to the idea just yet. Well, here ya go. Trust me, shit’s incredible.”
Lyra looked at the strip of beef in her hoof with mild disgust before closing her eyes and taking a small bite.
“Well?”
“…it feels so wrong to say that I like it.”
Galen chuckled. “Well, it’s not exactly immoral. No sentient being was killed to make it, and the thing that was didn’t suffer, so it’s morally fine, despite the psychotic breed of vegans that insist otherwise.”
Lyra took another bite. “Vegans?”
“People that don’t eat anything that comes from an animal. Not only do they not eat meat, but they won’t eat eggs, cheese, milk, or anything like that either. I’m not saying all vegans are crazy, but the ones that are are REALLY crazy.”
“Wow. Humans can eat meat, but some of them still choose not to? Weird.”
“I heard ponies can eat meat too, they just choose not to.”
Lyra gave a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I was worried I’d get sick or something.”
“Still would’ve been worth though.”
“For you maybe. This is still uncomfortable for me.”
“You say, taking your third piece.”
Lyra gave a sheepish smile. “It IS good though. Hey, I just want to say I’m sorry for being such a crazy fanfilly all day. It’s just that I’ve been researching humans for so long, and to finally have proof they exist, AND meet one? I was really exited, you know. I think I’m calm enough to realize that I was being weird, and I’m sorry if I creeped you out.”
Galen gave a laugh. “There was a kid in high school who would follow me around wherever I went. THAT was creepy. You were honestly just being exasperating at worst.”
Lyra laughed too. “Why was there a baby goat following you around your school?”
Galen gave her a confused look, until realization dawned. “No, like a human kid. It’s what we call our children.”
“Oh. Do you have any ‘kids’? Sorry if that’s a weird question to ask, I’m just curious.”
“Hell no! I do have five younger siblings though. The youngest aren’t much different from having a kid of my own I suppose. Besides, I’m only 17, not even a legal adult. Why would I have kids?”
Lyra blinked in surprise. “17 is still a minor to humans? In Equestria, you become an adult once you turn 16!”
“…what.”
“Yeah! I mean, I’m pretty sure almost everypony in your house right now is under 20. I’m only 17 myself!”
Galen gave a sigh. “Well I guess that makes sense why they’re so childlike still. I’m not dealing with adults, I’m dealing with children who pay taxes.”
Lyra laughed. “That’s a good way to put it!”
All of a sudden, a *ding—dong!* resounded across the house.
“What was that?”
“The doorbell, someone must have rung it.”
Galen and Lyra went back over to the open window to find a ticked off earth pony standing at the front door. Her glare sharpened when she saw Lyra.
“There you are! You were supposed to help me with the shop today, not ditch me to harass our new neighbor!”
Lyra gave a nervous chuckle. “Uh, hi Bon-Bon. Sorry, I just really wanted to meet him! Did you know he’s a human?!”
Bon-Bon rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m very aware. Almost everypony in town knows by now, given how Pinkie and Twilight were talking about it all through the streets last evening. I bet you’re very exited, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to ditch me when I need your help!”
Bon-Bon yanked Lyra out of the windowsill and put her on her back. “I’m very sorry if she bothered you sir, she can get overexcited about her whole human thing. That being said, it is quite odd to have a real human, a creature I thought my housemate made up, living here In our town.”
Galen frowned. “Well, I’m not exactly a human at the moment. But yeah, if you need her for something take her. I didn’t realize she ditched work to come here.”
Bon-Bon glared at Lyra again. “Oh, we’ll talk about that when we get home. Have a good day sir. Sorry for the trouble.”
“Bye! I’ll come again soon!” Another glare was cast Lyra’s way. “When I don’t need to work of course. Hehe….”
Galen watched the two mares leave with a blank expression. “Well that happened.” He shut the window and turned around to find Twilight looking at him.
“Uh, you need something?”
“I overheard your conversation with Lyra. You didn’t realize you were considered an adult here?”
“No, thought I was still a couple months off.”
“Well, anyway, I thought it would be a good time to mention that the princesses want to make you an official citizen of Equestria!”
“Let me guess, that requires paperwork.”
“Heh, sorry, it does. Can you write with your hooves or mouth yet?”
“A) no I can’t, B) my writing was already shitty with hands, and C) I don’t know your written language.”
“Well, the language thing we can hopefully figure out soon. As for the writing bit itself, I’m sure that once you learn basic levitation, you’ll be able to write fine. We don’t need to do it right now, the princesses didn’t give a deadline after all, but it should still get done as soon as possible.”
“Sigh. Paperwork, the bane of every civilized being’s existence.”
Rainbow looked up from the TV. Applejack had joined in on watching the sport at some point too. “Hey, I feel for ya dude, the weather reports I have to write are sooo boring. I can’t imagine becoming a citizen would be fun.”
“Well, whatever, I don’t need to worry about it right now. Twilight, you want to try and get this whole translation crap over with right now?”
“Sounds good to me. Hey by the way, have you seen Pinkie come in?”
Galen stopped dead in his tracks. “…Shit. I’m gonna go make sure she hasn’t passed out.”
Galen found Pinkie Pie giggling in the hot tub while sliding her back up against one of the jets. She looked up to see him and smiled.
“Hi Galen! I didn’t know you had a twin!”
Galen raised and eyebrow, before widening his eyes and sighing. “Pinkie, you’re seeing double. It’s time for you to get out.”
"What?! But it's so comfy in here!"
"I know, but you're gonna pass out if you don't get out soon."
Pinkie sighed and tried climbing out of the tub. Her hoof slipped on the way out however, and she went tumbling to the ground.
Galen winced. "Ouch. You okay?"
Pinkie shot up, a giant smile on her face. "That was so fun! It was so bubbly and warm in there! Can I go back in later?"
Galen gave her an odd look. "Maybe later. You should probably stay out of there for a bit. Cool down and all that. Dry yourself off before going back inside, kay?"
Pinkie nodded and then shook herself off like a dog. Galen grimaced and backed away to avoid getting wet.
"Okay! I'm all dry now, let's go back in!"
"...Sure. Warn me the next time you're gonna do that."
Galen and Pinkie entered the house once again. Pinkie bounced off to find something to do while Galen went back over to Twilight.
"Good news! Pinkie isn't dead."
"I'd call that a little more than good news!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway, let's get this language barrier out of the way before I forget about it. First I guess we should go over what each of our letters sound like to see if they're in the same order or not."
"That's a good idea. Let's start with yours."
"Sigh. This is gonna take a while."
As it would turn out, their written languages were in the exact same format, just with different symbols.
"That... is really fucking dumb."
"And really coincidental. At least this will make translation a breeze."
"Yeah. All we really have to do now is make a chart saying which symbol is which."
"I can work on that. You should probably go check on Rarity. She's been upstairs for a while."
"...Yeah, good point. Imma go make sure she hasn't ruined anything."
Galen trotted into his parent's closet to find Rarity levitating multiple dresses and a sketchpad.
"Hey, just checking up on you to make sure you haven't destroyed anything yet. What exactly are you doing?"
Startled, Rarity jumped a little. Her focus dropped and she lost concentration, dropping the dresses from her magic aura. They fell on the floor, with one landing on her head.
Removing the clothing from her head, Rarity looked behind her. "Oh, Galen darling! Sorry about the mess, I was looking through some of the dresses to see their design. Of course I would never copy one, but I was hoping that it would give me some inspiration for my own work."
"Okay... well as long as you clean up after yourself, I'm cool with it."
"Oh, darling! Before you go, I have one question. How did the creator of these dresses manage to do such a perfect sewing job? It's almost flawless on every dress!"
"Oh, that's probably because they're made in a factory by machines."
Rarity froze. "Darling. Did I hear that right? You said that these dresses were made in... factories?"
"Yeah."
Rarity's eye twitched.
"Okay look. If you're gonna go on a rant I'm just gonna leave. So why don't you calm down and tell me your thoughts in a nice, organized manner."
Rarity closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She stayed that way for about a minute before she spoke again.
"Why? And how? How would that even work? Who comes up with the design? How do you get accurate measurements if you're just mass producing them like a common item? It takes away everything that makes clothing unique!"
Galen sighed. "Look. I understand where you're coming from. You live in a society that treats clothing as nothing but vanity. Humans treat clothing as a necessity. It's taboo to go out in public without clothing on. Hell, you'd be arrested for public indecency! Everyone needs to wear clothing all day, every day. Now, if clothing were being handmade by singular designers like it is in your society, then there wouldn't be nearly enough to meet the demand of everyone."
Rarity thought on that for a moment. "I... suppose that makes sense. But what about the fitting? How do these factories know how to create clothing that fits every customer?"
"That's easy. They make general sizes for the clothing. I don't know how they size dresses because I've never wore one, but for shirts they come in sizes ranging from small to large. Then there's extra small and extra large, and sizes past that for those who need them. Pants on the other hand are measured in numbers. There are two separate measures for pants. The waist and the height."
"Ah... I suppose that would work. Do humans seriously wear clothes all the time?"
"Well, not ALL the time. Not while we're washing ourselves, or engaging in more...passionate affairs."
Catching on to the meaning, Rarity blushed and coughed. "Ahah... Yes, of course. Is that why you've been wearing that robe all day?"
Galen looked back at the bath robe he had kept on. He had put it on when he noticed the ponies approaching his house.
"I guess. I know I'll have to get used to not wearing clothes, especially since none of mine fit me anymore, but I feel uncomfortably exposed without anything on in the presence of company."
"Well it's only natural darling. You've been used to wearing clothing all the time for your whole life, so of course a change like this would take time to adjust to. In fact, I have a marvelous idea! How about I make some new clothing for you! That way you'll have clothing that fits you, and I'll be able to experiment with more casual clothing!"
"Yeah, uh, I don't have anything to pay you with. I'm pretty sure my credit card isn't worth shit here."
"Payment? Nonsense darling! This is free of charge!"
"You're joking right?"
Rarity gasped dramatically. "Why darling, why ever would you assume that?!"
"Generosity like this is unheard of where I come from. There's a reason the phrase 'Nothing's free in this world' is a thing. If someone was advertising 'free' products or services, there's always strings attached. Like a free trial for a program for instance. If you don't remember to cancel the trial, then it will automatically start the subscription and make you pay money."
"False advertising? How terrible!"
"Technically it's not false advertising. It's just something the company knows you'll forget about. False advertising is illegal, which is why people come up with clever ways to skim over the details, or make them hard to notice. Such is the art of capitalism."
Rarity frowned. "Are most humans like this?"
"Greedy and manipulative? Yes."
The white mare huffed. "Well! If you’re so used to such behavior, then I'll have to show you that us ponies are different! Bring some of your clothing in here darling. I need to get a good look at what it is you wear."
Taken slightly aback by Rarity's aggressive generosity, Galen nodded. "Uh... sure. I'll be right back."
A couple minutes later, he came back with a small pile of clothing on his back. "Here. A couple hoodies, T-shirts, jeans, and sweatpants.
"Here. This is the type of stuff I wear most of the time."
Rarity took the clothing and held them up in her aura to examine. She took notice of the design of one of the hoodies.
"Galen, what does this symbol mean?"
"Huh? Oh, that's just the Under Armour brand logo. I don't think that they can copyright strike you from another dimension, so feel free to copy it if you actually plan on making me new clothing."
Rarity nodded and began to draw in her sketch book. "Feel free to leave darling. I'm afraid I'll be too engrossed in examining your clothes to make idle chit-chat."
"Yeah, okay. I was getting bored anyway. Uh, thanks again for doing this Rarity. Like I said, generosity like this isn't really a thing where I'm from. Even if you were friends with a business owner, all they'd do is give you a discount, not free stuff!"
"Think nothing of it darling! Generosity is sort of my thing. Oh. by the way, be sure to stop by my boutique when you first go into town. I need to take your measurements."
Galen blinked. "Right... that. Fuck."
Rarity rolled her eyes. "Don't act too excited. It won't take much time at all, I promise."
"It's not the time I'm worried about, more the awkwardness of it all."
Rarity smirked. "Then just for you, I'll be sure to make the experience as awkward as possible."
Galen narrowed his eyes. "I knew there was a catch."
Rarity just laughed as the former human walked out of the room.
“Rarity’s looking at my clothing. Apparently she wants to make me something that will, y’know, actually fit me now.”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “That sounds like Rares alright. She'll find any excuse she can to make clothing."
“Isn’t that like her job though? I thought I heard she was a seamstress.”
Applejack smirked. “My point still stands.”
“Well, whatever. I’m gonna go see how Twilight is doing with translation."
Twilight happened to be entering the room at that moment. "No need, I'm already done! I made translation notes for you, and me and my friends!"
"Oh sweet! Wait, how'd you learn how to use the copy machine without me?"
Twilight tilted her head in confusion. "What's a copy machine? I just wrote them out myself."
Galen blinked. "Jesus Christ, and I thought I wrote fast. The copy machine does what the name suggests. It copies a paper's contents onto other sheets of paper. Much easier than writing everything out yourself."
Twilight gave Galen a shocked and excited look. "That would save me SO much time on lists! You need to show me how to use it!"
Galen waved her off. "Maybe another time. Gimme one of those papers, I'm gonna try and start memorizing it."
"Good idea. Here, I brought a dictionary in case we would need it. It should help you get a grasp on the symbols a little easier."
Galen took the book and sighed. "I really hope this isn't gonna suck as much as Spanish class. I never was good at foreign language. I have a dictionary in my room as well. Here, I'll bring it down so you can look at it. We may have some words that aren't known to each other, so we should look out for them as well."
"That would be great!"
Galen and Twilight began to attempt memorizing the symbols of their respective languages. They ended up losing track of time, and by the time they looked at the clock, it was already evening.
"Ah, shit. You girls should probably get going. It's getting late and all."
Twilight sighed. "Yeah, that's probably for the best. Most of us do have jobs to get to in the morning, and Spike needs to go to bed soon too. I'll go gather him up, you can alert the girls."
Twilight trotted down the basement stairs to get Spike while Galen went to check in on his other guests. Rainbow and Applejack were bickering on the couch. Apparently, they had started placing bets with each other on what team would win the game, and Rainbow's pick had barely won out. She hadn't let Applejack hear the end of it since.
"Alright ya two hotheads, if you're gonna be fighting over sportball like my dad and uncle at a family gathering you're gonna do it outside. It's about time to get going."
That seemed to snap the two out of it. For the 30 seconds it took them to get out the door, when they started up all over again. Galen rolled his eyes and went over to Fluttershy. She had curled up with Sam on the couch and draped a wing over him. The former human smirked and rolled his eyes before nudging her awake.
"Hrn... huh..?"
"It's getting late Fluttershy, you should probably head home."
"Oh dear... you're right. My dear animal friends must be so worried. I completely forgot to check in on them today! I'll see you tomorrow Galen, if that's all right that is."
As Fluttershy swiftly exited the house, well swiftly for her standards, Galen trotted into the kitchen to find Pinkie Pie humming a tune while baking. Somehow in time she had been in the kitchen, she had made three triple layer cakes, a batch of brownies, and multiple trays of assorted cookies. Galen sighed in exasperation.
"Pinkie, did you use MY baking supplies to make all this?"
"Yeppers! Turns out your baking ingredients aren't much different than ours, well apart from some teensy little details! Here, want a cookie?"
"Pinkie... how much of my baking supplies did you use?"
"Oh, well a couple bags of flour, a couple bags of sugar, and a bunch of other stuff, why?"
"I NEEDED that to make things at a later date! Next time please ask before you use that much! Can you at least replace what you used?"
"What? But you still have plenty! See?"
Galen peered into the lazy Susan to find it chock full. Nothing was missing from the last time he checked. He swiveled his head from the Susan to the literal mound of empty bags of ingredients and back again.
"...Not even gonna question it. Gimme one of those cookies."
"Which one?"
"Snickerdoodle."
Pinkie handed one of the cookies over to Galen and he took a bite. His eyes widened in surprise.
"As Samuel L. Jackson would say, this is some serious gourmet shit! Damn, tastes like I got it from an obscenely overpriced bakery!"
"Hooray! You like it! Does that mean you're not upset anymore?"
"Not since my lazy Susan is still somehow fully stocked. But seriously, tell me next time you're gonna make that much with my stuff."
Pinkie gave a salute. "Gotha Gae!"
Galen deadpanned. "Don't call me that ever again."
"Okie dokie lokie!" With that, Pinkie gathered up all her pastries and bounded out the door, somehow balancing it all at once.
"I swear, she's gonna give me an aneurism."
After shaking off the residual crazy that Pinkie had left behind, Galen went up the stairs to find Rarity drawing what appeared to be diagrams for what was to be his new clothing.
"Hey, Rarity, everyone's leaving. It's getting kind of late."
"Oh, but I had finally gotten a good idea on how to recreate the sweatshirts! Would it trouble you to let me bring them home with me?"
"Knock yourself out. You're making this stuff for me after all, and I have literally no use for clothing I can't wear."
"Oh, thank you darling! I'll have your new wardrobe ready as soon as possible."
Rarity grabbed Galen's clothing and her other things in her magic aura and began to make her way out.
"Well, that's the last of them. I wonder if Twilight and Spike have left yet?"
As he went down the stairs, Galen found Twilight and Spike in the doorway.
"Come on Spike, it's getting late."
"But can't I at least ask him first?"
"Ask me what?"
Spike and Twilight looked over to Galen in mild surprise. "There you are! I was wondering if you had gone upstairs."
Spike rushed over to Galen. "Dude, those games were so awesome! Can I borrow it? Just for the night?"
"Hmmm... no."
"Aw, what?! Come on man!"
"That shit's expensive as hell, and actually irreplaceable now that I'm stuck here. It's not leaving my house unless I'm the one taking it. If you broke it, well..."
Spike took the message and hung his head. "Yeah, now that you mention it, that was a pretty silly thing to ask, huh? I can still come over and play sometimes though, right?"
"S'long as it's okay with Twilight, I don't see a reason why not."
"Awesome! Can we come back tomorrow, Twilight?"
"Actually, I was going to ask Galen if he wanted a tour of Ponyville tomorrow."
"Oh, right. I do live here now, huh? I guess, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get myself acquainted with the layout of the town. Sure, I'm down."
"Great, I'll let the girls know. I'll see you tomorrow, Galen."
"Yeah, okay."
Galen shut the door and sighed. "The longer I'm here the more it settles in how surreal my life is now. I'm a tiny ass Unicorn, everything looks like a cartoon, and magic is real. Well, whatever. If I stew on it, I'll probably have some sort of existential crisis. Now, I guess it's time to do what I've been dreading all day. Call my dad, and probably be teased relentlessly about being turned into an animate girl toy."
Galen trudged up to his room, ready to face humiliation yet again.
Chapter 13: Fatherly Phone Call and The Princess of The Night
Galen sighed anxiously as he waited for his father to pick up. He had texted his dad earlier, using text to speech of course, and he had asked for a FaceTime. His dad had agreed, stating that his mom had told him some odd things about her conversation with Galen the night before.
Eventually, his father picked up. "Hey Galen, what's... what's up with the plush doll?"
Galen sighed. "This is gonna suck to explain to everyone."
His dad's reaction to the 'plush' moving its mouth in sync with Galen's voice was as expected.
After Galen's father had recovered from his shock and been told what was going on, he promptly burst out laughing.
"Uh, are you alright?"
"Hahaha! It's just so hilarious hearing your voice coming out of a tiny horse with giant eyes!"
"...shut up dad, this is embarrassing enough as is."
"Yeah, I know, I just need to have a good laugh about it, or else I might freak out again."
"Sigh, that makes sense, I guess. I've honestly just thrown logic out the window at this point so that I don't have a meltdown trying to scientifically justify how this is possible. I'm just trying to go with the flow anymore."
His dad laughed. "That's probably for the best. Your mother told me you met some of the residents yesterday. are they-"
"Yes, they are also ponies. Except for one I met today that happens to be a juvenile dragon."
"A dragon? I bet you're wishing you got turned into one of them instead."
"If only for having opposable digits. I also met another resident that not only knew about humans but was utterly obsessed with them."
"What? Do humans exist there?"
"Not as far as I know. The others mentioned that they thought she was crazy until they met me, so apparently it's just something about her."
"Well it seems like you've had an eventful day, even for your circumstances. By the way, Sam is okay, right?"
"Yep, he's fine. He's actually sleeping on my bed right now."
Galen stood up on his hind legs so he could bring his father's view to the top of the bed. Once he had given his dad a good look, he lowered himself again.
"Hah! Are you seriously so small you can't see over your bed without doing that?"
"I'm around two feet tall and I hate it. You don't need to rub it in."
"Okay, I get it. You always did hate how short you were. Getting even shorter must be rubbing salt in the wound."
"I'm gonna change topics now. How'd the interview go? The reporters weren't too pushy, were they?"
"They tried to be, but I ended the interview once they started to annoy me. You'll hear all these horror stories about the media, but you never know the true extent of it until you've experienced it yourself."
"Well, it's over now. With any luck they'll take the story and leave you be after."
"Don't jynx it. Look bud, I'm sorry I can't talk longer, but I've had a long day and I gotta get up early tomorrow for work."
"Don't worry, I'm going to bed soon anyways."
"Yeah, I guess this would be pretty mentally taxing on you huh?"
"What? No, I'm just going to bed early because I'm gonna be bored without being able to play video games."
Galen's dad let out a chuckle at that. "Well, I'll talk to you another time bud. Be sure to call us every day. We need to make sure you're safe, given we have no idea where the hell you are or what it's like. You know how much your mother worries. Have fun being a tiny horse!"
Galen sighed irritably. "Goodnight dad."
After getting off the call with his dad, Galen just lied on his bed for a while, staring up at the ceiling.
"Sigh. I told myself I wouldn't do this, but it's hard not to think about everything that's going on. I need to find a distraction before I start questioning the validity of my own existence or something."
As if fate itself decided to grant his request, a text message dinged on Galen's phone. He picked it up to read it.
"Ah, shit." It was from Jason, his best friend. "Hey man, are you still alive? I heard about what happened on the news."
Galen sighed. "I'm probably gonna be getting a lot of texts like this soon." He started to voice a reply.
"Yeah man, I'm still kicking. I'll call you in a couple days to let you know what's going on, but I want to spend a bit more time figuring some things out first."
After a moment, he got a thumbs up emoji followed by a 'thank GOD'. After waiting around a little longer to see if anyone else would text him, he shut off his light and got under the covers, falling to sleep.
Galen opened his eyes to find himself in a black void.
"What... the fuck?"
He began to stand up, only to realize he was back in his human body.
"...reality needs to quit fucking with me man. What the hell is even real anymore?!"
Suddenly, a voice called out from behind him that caused him to jump, startled.
"Be at ease. You are merely dreaming; this is not the plane of reality."
Galen turned around to see a dark blue mare with wings and a horn staring up at him. She was a bit larger than an average pony, but still only reached up to about the middle of his torso as a human.
"Uh, okay? Who are you?"
The mare appeared to look a tad offended before she seemed to realize something. "Of course. It is understandable that you would not know of us. We art Princess Luna. Ruler of the night and Guardian of dreams."
"Huh. That's interesting. I was told that you and your sister were going to be visiting me in a couple days. Are you communicating with me via a dream, or am I just imagining this?"
"We can assure you that we are very much real. We have entered your dreamscape to introduce ourself. It was quite difficult to dispel the chaotic dreams that your mind conjures. We have never seen anything like it."
Galen quirked an eyebrow. "Okay, cool. What's up with the 'we' talk anyway? I've heard of first-person speech, but not that."
Luna flinched in embarrassment for a moment. "We-I apologize. I am still having difficulties adjusting to modern times. I am afraid that I still slip into the olden royal tongue at times."
"Adjusting? What'dya mean by that?"
"W-I assumed young Twilight had told you my story. Do you not know of my imprisonment on the moon?"
"Your what? I swear, this world keeps getting weirder and weirder."
"I see. I do not feel comfortable talking about it, but I suppose you have a right to know of my dark past. Over a millennium ago, I became jealous of my sister for getting more attention and adoration than I. This jealousy took the form of a dark persona known as Nightmare Moon. I lost myself to my rage and spite and declared that I would make the night everlasting. My sister was forced to banish me to the moon to maintain harmony. After 1000 years, I escaped and resumed my goal of everlasting night. It was then that the elements of harmony, the magical artifacts that my sister used to banish me originally Chose young Twilight and her friends to be the new bearers. Using the power of the elements, they banished Nightmare Moon from my mind."
Galen blinked in shock. "Jesus, that's... a bit of a crazy story."
Luna hung her head shamefully. "I do not enjoy talking about my past. The wounds are still fresh, and it sorrows me to remember the pain I put my dear sister and out subjects through. It is understandable if you fear me after hearing about my evil acts."
Galen rolled his eyes. "What I meant was that seems like a story you'd read in a work of fiction. Honestly as long as you regret what you did, I could care less. I wasn't around to witness any of that. And really, if you want to know what an 'evil act' really is, I can tell you about World War II."
Luna raised her head. "Wh-what? You truly do not hold ou-my actions against me?"
"Like I said, I wasn't around to see it firsthand, so I really don't have a right to. But if you want, I could try to get to know you as you are now. You seem like you need some friends."
Luna gave a relieved smile. "Thank you, Galen. Are all 'humans' as understanding as you?"
Galen gave a full belly laugh at that. "Oh HELL no. Most of them will judge you based on one sentence taken out of context. I'm at least willing to hear someone out though."
Luna chuckled. "Then Equestria is lucky to have one that is so accepting. I must say, humans are quite tall. You are even taller than my sister."
"Huh? Oh yeah, I forgot I have my actual human body here. The average height for a human male, at least in my country, is 5'9."
Luna looked Galen up and down and smirked. "So, you are short."
"Oh, fuck off."
Luna laughed. "We-I must say, it is odd to hear a creature be speaking the vulgar words in this modern day. It is rather amusing; however, I cannot say my sister will approve."
"Well, she'll have to deal with it. Royalty or no, I'm not going to be forced to censor myself."
Luna sat down with a smile. "I do believe I will like you. There is still quite some time before you will awaken. Perhaps you could tell me about yourself?"
Galen smirked. "My name is Galen Munson. I'm 17 years old. I used to live in New York State within the country of the United States of America. I attended my local high school every day of the week, and I got home every day by-"
Galen sat up and blinked. "Wow, waking up from a lucid dream is a lot different than waking up normally. Usually I'd lay in bed another half hour."
The Unicorn groaned and slid off his bed. "Back to quadruped hell. Felt nice having fingers again, even if it was a dream. Well, dreamscape I guess, but still."
Galen's conversation with Luna had been interesting. He had told her about some of his hobbies such as video games and building Lego sets. Two things he couldn't do without hands, he noted bitterly. He'd also explained why his dreams were so chaotic compared to a normal Ponies'.
"Essentially, the dreams of humans are usually based on aspirations, hidden desires, or simply the events of the past day. Dreams are fleeting and nonsensical, and very few of them are actually remembered. It's basically the brain's way of keeping itself occupied during down time."
Luna had found the concept odd, but decided to save her questions for a later time in favor of telling Galen some things about herself. The basic gist he had gotten from it was that she REALLY needed some friends. Apart from her sister, Luna didn't seem to talk to anyone. Most ponies were hesitant to accept her given the legends that had been told about her evil persona Nightmare Moon over the centuries. That combined with her Alicorn status would make it rather hard to bond with anyone.
"I'll need to find her someone to hang out with. Whether that'll be me or someone else remains to be seen."
Galen adjusted his glasses for the 4th time in 10 minutes. "I'm gonna need to see if I can get a replacement pair. These things just don't do the trick when my eyes are the size of dinner plates."
After eating and fumbling a toothbrush around in his hooves for 20 minutes, Galen laid down on the couch and shuffled his playlist while he waited for Twilight to arrive.
"This is gonna require a lot of walking, isn't it?" Hopefully hooves don't get worn down like feet tend to."
Laying on the couch, Galen started to let his mind wander. I'm surprised I'm taking this so well. Being flung into another dimension and separated from my family and previous life is normally the kind of thing someone would take a while to recover from.
Galen stopped his thought process and stared at the wall blankly. Y'know what, maybe it's because I haven't been thinking about it much. I'm going to continue doing that now.
After about 15 minutes, Galen heard a knock at the door. "It's open! Don't expect me to reach that knob myself!"
The door was enveloped in a magical aura and opened to reveal Twilight and Spike.
"Hi Galen! Ready for your tour of Ponyville?"
"...It's gonna take a while to get used to that name. But sure, I'm good to go."
"Great! Oh, wait, before we leave, I got you this!"
Twilight levitated some saddle bags over to Galen. "Um, thanks? this is like a backpack, right?"
"If that's what humans call saddle bags. I thought I'd give you a pair in case you ended up needing to carry anything during our trip into town."
“Oh, cool. I guess I’ll just tuck my phone in there then.”
“Why would you need to bring that along?”
“In case anyone tries to call me. That and I tend to get fidgety when I go somewhere without it, as most people in my generation do.”
Twilight frowned. “That seems… unhealthy.”
“Yeah, but I’m not in a real rush to fix that issue. So, are we gonna go or what?"
"Oh, sure! I've prepared a list of places that we can visit in the most time efficient order."
"That seems unnecessary. I don't have any pressing matters to attend to today, so why don't we just take our time?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "That's what I tried telling her. But trying to talk Twilight out of making a list is pretty much impossible."
"Okay, well, can we not use the list? Having a set direction and time limit makes this feel more like a chore."
Twilight seemed to be a little perturbed at how her plan was being blown off, but sighed in acceptance. "Fine, I guess this is your tour, so it wouldn't be fair to do it in a way that would make you uncomfortable."
Spike's eyes lit up in excitement. "Hey Twilight, what if we gave him the tour using the same route we used when we first arrived? Wouldn't that be cool?"
Twilight hummed in thought. "That's actually a really good idea Spike! As long as Galen's okay with it!"
"Sure, I don't see a reason to object.”
"Great! Then let's get started! Our first stop would be Sweet Apple Acres. It's Just outside town."
"And how far away is that?"
"Oh, It's just a few miles."
Galen groaned.
"Okay, well at least there's one positive thing about this body. If I were still human, I would've been out of breath by now."
Twilight, Spike, and Galen were coming up on the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres. The walk had taken around 45 minutes, and a good portion of it had been uphill.
Twilight gave Galen a confused look. "Really? I assumed that the longer legs would make walking less strenuous."
"Yeah, you'd think. I suppose you ponies must have better endurance than humans. Then again, I was never especially fit, so maybe I'm not the best benchmark."
"Fascinating! Perhaps I'll have to do more research on humans after I figure out how to change you back into one."
Galen gave Twilight a wary look. "Don't go thinking about making me some sort of guinea pig. I'm not exactly keen on being experimented on."
Before that conversation could continue, Spike spoke up. "Hey, there's Applejack right now!"
The two ponies looked over to see the farm-mare trotting up to the entrance of the farm. "Well, Howdy! Gettin an early start on tha tour ah see?"
Twilight smiled at her friend. "Yep! I had originally planned to have us come here later, but we decided to take the same route I did when Spike and I first arrived in town."
"Well, that's a mighty fine idea! Ah'm sure Galen here will get to see all the sights in Ponyville that way. Come on this-a-way, ah'll give ya the introduction to Sweet Apple Acres."
The first thing that Galen noticed upon entering the farm proper was the amount of trees. "That's... a lot of friggin apples. Is that all that's farmed here?"
"Well, not all. But it is tha main focus. We Apples have prided ourselves on our apple trees for generations! Say Galen, What's yer favorite type?"
"Well, Honey Crisp I guess. Though Red delicious is also pretty good."
Applejack went over to one of the baskets that were stored nearby and came back with an apple in her hoof.
"One Honey Crisp, on tha house!"
Applejack hooved it over to Galen, who fumbled with it for a moment, trying to get a good grasp with his hoof before biting into it.
"That... is the best apple I've ever eaten! What are you putting into these things? That was incredible!"
Applejack wore a proud smile on her face. "Well, that's fine praise indeed! We here at Sweet Apple Acres put all our love an' care into every single one of our apple trees! And the results show in every apple that's harvested!"
"Well, in any case, I know where I'll get my apples from now on. This is way better than anything I could get at a store."
"Well, If Ya'll will follow me, ah'll introduce Galen here ta the rest of us at this here farm."
As Applejack led the way back to the farmhouse, Twilight spoke up. "You know, when I first visited Sweet Apple Acres, I arrived in the middle of the Apple family reunion. All of Applejack's relatives were here!"
"Huh. That must have been an experience."
"I'll say! They could barely fit everypony in the house!"
Spike giggled. "They also convinced Twilight to eat with them, and she ended up getting a stomachache from eating so much!"
Twilight gave Spike an annoyed look. "Yes, I guess I did eat too much, but It's only because I needed to make sure that the food was up to par for the Summer Sun Celebration!"
Applejack chuckled. "Wouldn't that jus' mean ya need ta taste everything once? Ya seemed to enjoy them apple fritters enough, if tha 3 ones ya ate are anythin' ta go on."
Twilight blushed as Galen smirked. "Hey, I get it. I tend to eat more than I should when I have something I like. It's why I usually get an upset stomach after pasta night."
Applejack spoke up as they neared the house. "Well, it's about time ah introduce ya ta the rest o' mah family livin here on tha farm. In fact, there's mah Granny Smith on tha porch! Howdy Granny! We got guests!"
The old mare snorted and startled awake, jerking up in her rocking chair. "Wha! Who's there?! Ah, that you Applejack? An ya brought one o' yer new friends, Twinkle, was it?"
Twilight smiled sheepishly. "Ah, it's Twilight actually, Miss Smith."
Granny Smith squinted her eyes. "Tha's what ah said, ain't it? An' who's this? Ya finally go an find yerself a Stallion AJ?"
Applejack blushed in embarrassment while Galen's eyes widened and he reared his head back a little. "Oookay. Very uncomfortable way to start a conversation. I just met Applejack like two days ago, I am in no way interested in her in that way." Not to mention that she's a completely different species, so yeah, HELL no.
Granny grunted and leaned back in her chair a little. "Pity. ah was hopin ta see some great grandfoals 'fore ah passed."
Applejack managed to recover her wits while Twilight and Spike giggled at her and Galen's embarrassment. "Come on Granny, quit messin with mah guest. This here is Galen, tha new arrival ta town ah mentioned."
Granny Smith's eyes widened a smidge. "Ah, so yer the feller who's house showed up outta nowhere? must'a been quite a shock for ya."
"Shocked doesn't begin to describe how I felt."
Granny gave a small chuckle that turned into a cough. "Well, Ponyville's far from tha worst place in Equestria ta end up. Real nice folk here. Been a close-knit community since the town was founded."
Galen hummed in acknowledgement Wouldn't a close-knit town be more wary of people, or ponies I suppose that they didn't know? Then again, these ponies seem to be a lot more welcoming and trusting than humans, so who knows.
Granny' eyes drooped a little. "Well, don't let me keep ya. Ah need ta get back to mah nap anyhow. Ah'm sure you'll get 'long real well with mah granddaughter, hehehe..."
Applejack groaned silently as Granny Smith fell back asleep. Galen rolled his eyes. "Does she try to get you hitched with every guy you meet?"
"Nah, Granny ain't bein serious. She's jus' tryin ta embarrass me. Don't think 'bout it none."
"I'll do that. It's how I've gotten through my time here so far."
Twilight and Spike had watched the exchange with entertained smiles. "Well, who's to say you won't get attached while you're here? You never know."
Galen gave Twilight a look. "Yeah, I don't think so. No offence to you ponies, but humans are one of, if not the only intelligent species in my world, so the idea of having a romantic relationship with another species is inherently off-putting for me. Not to mention I was never very romantically involved to begin with."
Twilight frowned in thought. "I suppose that makes sense. If humans are the only civilized species where you come from, it'd make sense that falling in love with a pony would be a weird concept."
Galen nodded. "Exactly." That's not to mention that we have ponies that are animals in my world, but it's best not to mention that.
Applejack led the way into the house, and upon entering, they were greeted with two more ponies. A small yellow filly with a red bow in her hair, and a rather large red Stallion.
"Galen, this here is mah big brother Big Macintosh an' mah little sis Apple Bloom. Ya can call mah brother Big Mac fer short."
Galen raised an eyebrow. Like the burger? "Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm new in town, which I'm assuming your sister already mentioned. I'm taking a tour of the town today, and this was our first stop."
Big Mac nodded and gave a simple "Howdy." Apple Bloom raced up to the former human and looked at him with curious eyes.
"Big sis said ya were from another world! That's so cool! Is it true that yer one of them 'Hyu-mens'? Do hyu-mens get cutie marks too? They must, since ya got one too! What's it mean?"
Galen looked over to Applejack and whispered. "What the hell is a 'cutie mark'?"
Applejack gave Galen an odd look. "Ya don't know what a cutie mark is? How can't ya... wait, never mind, dumb question. A cutie mark is the markings on a pony's flank that signifies their special talent. Ponies only get em when they discover what they're best at. Little Apple Bloom here's been talking about gettin' one nonstop fer months now."
Galen looked over at the marking on his flank. It appeared to be some sort of gear with arrows spiraling around it both ways. 'Cutie mark'? Seriously, that's what this ass-tattoo is called? That's got to be the most humiliating thing to call it, my god.
Galen looked back over to Apple Bloom. "Well, to answer your questions, yes I am, or was, I guess, a human. No, humans don't get 'cutie marks'. Mine appeared when I got turned into a unicorn. I also have no idea what it means. It seems pretty abstract."
Apple Bloom looked disappointed. "Really? How can ya not know yer own special talent? Everypony knows what their cutie mark means as soon as they get it!"
Applejack chuckled. "Come now sis. Galen just said he weren't even a pony till a few days ago. He might need ta take some time ta figure out what his talent is."
Galen shrugged as best he could with his current body. "Well, I have more than one talent. Most people do. I'd have to guess what the mark represents is the talent that's most prevalent. And that might take some time to figure out."
"Well, what're ya good at? It must be one of those things!"
"Well, I'm pretty good at video games, I've got a bit of a knack for cooking, and science and math come pretty naturally to me. I know quite a bit of history too, but that's mostly because most of my family are history buffs."
Twilight hummed. "Well, none of those things seem like they would match your cutie mark. Maybe if you had a reference for other cutie marks you'd have an easier time figuring out what yours means. "My cutie mark represents my talent for magic!"
Galen looked at Twilight's mark, which seemed to be a small collection of twinkling stars. "Well, the mark itself looks pretty ambiguous, I don't really know if that helps my case. Seems like some marks are easier to decipher than others. I'm assuming Applejack's talent has to do with apples?"
The mare in question chuckled. "Well, ah suppose that one's fairly obvious huh. Yeah, mah talent lies in farmin apples. Most of us Apples have had cutie marks related to our craft."
Apple Bloom bounced on the tips of her hooves. "Ah know! What if ah help ya figure out what yer cutie mark means! Maybe Ah'll figure out what mah own special talent is too!"
Galen smiled slightly "Y'know what, sure kid. Just make sure not to go too crazy, okay?"
Apple Bloom frowned a bit. "Why're ya callin me a goat mister? It some sort of Hyu-men thing?"
"Oh, sorry, kid is what humans call their children. It's probably gonna take me a while for me to get used to pony phrases."
"Oh, okay. That's kinda weird."
Twilight was starting to get a little antsy. "I'm sorry to rush, but we should probably get going if we want to see the rest of the town today Galen. It's already almost 11."
Galen rolled his eyes. "I think you're being a little hasty, but fine. it did take a while to walk up here, so maybe you have a point."
Applejack tipped her hat. "Well, it was nice o' ya ta stop by. Ah'll see ya later then. Ya'll have a nice ay, y'hear? Ah've gotta get back ta apple-bucking anyhow."
Apple Bloom Started racing upstairs. "Ah'll get started on a plan for figuring out yer cutie mark! Nice ta meet ya mister Galen!"
Big Mac, who Galen had forgotten was even there with how quiet he'd been, trotted past them out the door with a quick "See ya 'round"
Not much of a talker, that one. Understandable I suppose.
Twilight smiled and waved goodbye to Applejack. "Now, next up on our list should be Rarity's boutique! We can see how she's coming along with your new clothes!"
Spike's eyes glossed over "Oh, I can't wait! I haven't seen Rarity in forever!"
Galen gave Spike a strange look. "Dude, you literally saw her just yesterday."
"I know, it's been so long!"
Twilight shook her head in amusement. "Spike really likes Rarity, it's best to leave it be."
Galen rolled his eyes. oh boy. That kind of crush won't end well. If for nothing but the age gap.
Twilight pulled out a checklist that she's made while they were walking to Sweet Apple Acres. Well, that's our first stop down! On to Rarity's!"
Galen sighed. "What did I say about lists? It makes this feel like a job."
After walking back into town, Twilight, Spike, and Galen made their way through the streets on their way to Rarity's.
"Y'know, I'm getting quite a few stares. It's kinda making me uncomfortable."
It was true. Many of the ponies on the streets gave Galen curious glances as they passed.
Twilight gave Galen a sympathetic look. "It's probably because you're not only new to town, but showed up at the same time your house did. The locals are probably curious about who you are, and why your house showed up out of nowhere."
Twilight blushed in embarrassment. "That and most of them probably overheard my friends and I talking about you after the first day we met, so most of them probably know you're new to being a pony as well."
Galen sighed. "Great. Being the guy who lives in the house that showed up out of nowhere is bad enough, but now they know I'm essentially an alien too. Interacting in town is going to be so awkward for a while, isn't it?"
"Well, sure ponies might be nervous around you for a little while, but I'm sure they'll warm up to you after they get used to your presence."
Spike gave Galen's shoulder a light bump. "Yeah! I mean, it took a few days for everypony to get used to me and Twilight, but we've been accepted into Ponyville pretty easily."
Galen nodded, but was inwardly unconvinced. sure, but there's a difference between two out of towners and an unknown stranger from a different world. Guess I'll just have to power through the scrutiny for now.
The group of three continued onward, until a rather noticeable building came into view. It was in the shape of a carousel, with pony mannequins displaying dresses in the windows in front.
"Well, that's a neat theme for a store. This is where Rarity works?"
"As well as where she lives, yes. Come on, let's go see what she's up to!"
Twilight led the way to the door and gave it a few knocks. They waited for a few seconds, before the door opened and the white unicorn answered.
"Welcome to carousel boutique, where everything is... Oh, hello there, Twilight dear! And I see you've bought Galen with you! Giving him the tour of Ponyville I'd assume?"
"Yep! In fact, we decided to take the same route I did when I first came to town."
"Oh, that sounds like a wonderful idea! Do come in, I've been working on your clothes Galen, and I must say it has been rather difficult to resist... improving the design, so to speak. I know you've requested that the design stays the same, but most of your dressings are quite... plain. No offence of course."
"None taken. I don't dress to look fancy. Like I've said, the only reason I want those clothes is to cover myself up. I know you ponies seem to be fine with walking around without wearing anything, but it's going to take me a while to get used to that."
"Completely understandable darling. You said you come from a culture where clothing is required in public, so it would only be natural to be uncomfortable going out without any. In fact, I can see that you're still wearing that oversized robe of yours. I must say, it isn't very flattering."
Galen looked back at himself. He had left the house that morning wearing his bathrobe, since it was the only thing that he could even wear in his new body. The thing was definitely quite oversized, and he had to take good care to prevent himself from tripping while he walked.
Come to think of it, the robe might also be playing a factor in those stares. Still think it's better that walking around in the nude, but that's something to consider.
"Yeah, I'll admit the bathrobe isn't exactly something I'd typically wear outside, but it's all I can really fit on myself at the moment."
Rarity gasped dramatically. "Well, that simply won't do! As luck would have it, you won't need to wear that ratty thing for much longer! I will admit it took me some time to figure out, and I was unfortunately unable to replicate the elastic properties, but I have managed to recreate one of your outfits to fit your new body!"
Rarity walked over to a corner of the room and with a dramatic flair, levitated the cloth off a ponequin to reveal what she had created. it was one of Galen's sweatshirts, grey in color, as well as a pair of jeans, remodeled to fit his new pony body shape.
"It's certainly not much, but I hope you're happy with the result. I had to repurpose your old pants to make the new pair. Those 'jeans' of yours must be quite expensive, denim is quite an expensive fabric, given how fine and durable the weave is."
Galen walked over to the display, eyes wide. "You did this overnight? That's insane! I mean, I know you're probably really good at this type of thing, but hell, that's like no time at all!"
Rarity chuckled and waved a hoof. "oh, it wasn't that difficult! The hardest part is usually coming up with the design, and that was already taken care of!"
"Seriously though, thank you for this. You're sure you don't want anything in return? I know I can't really pay you money, since you probably use a different type of currency, but-"
"Oh, don't think of it! You needn't do anything of the sort dear! It's simply a gift from me to my new friend! Besides, you're already dealing with quite a lot, being sent to a new world and in a new body. I wouldn't dream of adding anything more to your plate."
"Well in that case, I guess I can at least give some context to my clothes. Denim isn't actually that expensive. I guess I can understand why it would be hard to make here, since you don't have precise machines to weave the fabric, but jeans, and denim in general, are actually quite common in my world. And elastic part of my clothes is because of a material called spandex. I don't really know how it's made, but I do know it's a pretty artificial material."
Rarity took the information in with an interested expression. "While I still don't quite care for how you humans mass produce your clothing, I can't deny that those machines would make fabrics much easier to create, and less expensive as a result. It's quite interesting to think about. As for this 'spandex' material, I believe that with a little bit of time and practice, I can incorporate a few enchantments into the clothing to replicate the elasticity of the originals."
Rarity gave an excited laugh. "Oh, your clothing has given me so many exciting ideas to work with! Perhaps you've paid me back in that way already."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it, even though I don't really understand what all the fuss is about."
Twilight coughed to get Galen's attention. "Well, aren't you going to try your new clothing on? Like Rarity said, I doubt you want to be walking around Ponyville in that robe all day."
"Oh, yes! I was so wrapped up in our conversation that I almost forgot about it! Wait one moment Galen Darling, I'll be right back!"
The mare retreated into one of the back rooms before coming out with a dressing screen.
"I realize you may be uncomfortable changing in front of us, so feel free to use this for privacy."
Galen raised an eyebrow. "Not that I'm not grateful, but why do you even have that? Ponies don't really care about being seen without clothes."
"Why, for the suspense of course! The anticipation of seeing one of my dresses being worn by a client is a feeling you simply cannot compare to anything else!"
Galen rolled his eyes. "Don't really get it, but I suppose it would be an important thing for you. Hang on a mo, lemme get this stuff on real quick."
Galen slung the clothes over his back and withdrew behind the screen. A few minutes passed, and then a few more.
"God damn, putting clothes on in this body is going to take some time to get used to. It took a bit, but here it is."
Galen came out from behind the screen, and the clothes seemed to fit him perfectly. there wasn't too much slack anywhere, but neither were the sweatshirt or jeans too tight.
Rarity looked on with a mixture of pride and happiness. "Oh, you look just incredible! I must admit I was worried that I may fail to fully recreate the casual look of the original design, since I've always stuck to more formal dresses and the like, but it seems my worries were unfounded."
Galen lifted his front and rear legs, testing out the range of motion and was pleased to find that there was no resistance. "I'm just glad that they're comfortable. at the end of the day, that's all that really matters to me. Well, so long as I don't look too ridiculous. I might not care too much about fashion, but there are some things I can acknowledge as cardinal sins. Socks and sandals, for instance."
Rarity made a disgusted face. "I don't even know what sandals are and I agree. Whoever came up with such a horrendous combination must be punished most severely."
Galen nodded sagely. "Indeed. Really, though, I can't thank you enough for doing this for me Rarity. It'll definitely help my mentality to have proper clothing to wear outside."
"No thanks are needed. As I said, I am simply happy to help out a friend. I shall let you know when the rest of your wardrobe is ready for collection." Perhaps I'll even surprise him with a few original designs of my own. I'm sure I can come up with a few ideas he'll like.
Twilight walked over to Galen and gave his clothes a once over. "They really do seem to fit you quite well. Rarity's outdone herself once again. Maybe I should see if she can make me something comfy to wear at home myself!"
Rarity tittered in amusement. "Perhaps. Now, I wouldn't want to keep you too much longer. You still have quite a lot to see on your tour I'd assume?"
Twilight blushed. "Oh, I'm sorry Rarity, we're taking up your time during business hours! We'll leave you to your work."
"Oh, there's no need to apologize! Feel free to stop by whenever you please. Ah, Galen darling, before you leave, I must ask if you'd leave your robe with me for a while. While I doubt you plan on wearing it out in public any longer, I would still like to remodel it to fit your new stature. I'm sure it'll at least be more comfortable to wear around your house in any case."
"Oh, that'd be awesome. Thanks for that Rarity."
"Of course Darling. Be on your way now, I wouldn't want to stall you any longer."
"Of course. It was great to see you Rarity! Come on Spike, we're leaving."
Galen and Twilight exited the store, the latter carrying a lovestruck drake behind with her telekinesis.
Rarity chuckled a little as she watched them go. "Well, I suppose I should get back to work." The white mare went over and picked up Galen's discarded robe, noticing the various dirt and grass stains on it. "Though, it might do to wash this first..."
Twilight, Galen and Spike exited Rarity's boutique and continued onwards to their next destination.
"Okay, our next stop is Fluttershy's house. She's a caretaker for animals, in case you didn't know that already, so don't be surprised if you see lots of critters lingering around her place."
"I figured she'd have a job like that. Given how much Sam seemed to take to her, she must have a real thing for animals."
"Well, Fluttershy's special talent is caring for animals. Nopony understands them quite like she does. "
Spike spoke up from atop Twilight's back. "By that she means that Fluttershy can literally talk to animals. It's pretty cool!"
Galen gave the drake a flat look. "I'm just gonna pretend that makes any form of sense and move on. So, how far away is...OHJESUSCHRIST!"
Galen dived to the side just in time to avoid a prismatic blur from slamming into him. It shot past where he was standing a moment prior and careened into a brick wall, kicking up a bunch of dust.
"What... the FUCK...was that?!"
The dust around the crash settled, revealing a disoriented Rainbow Dash. "Ugh, that did NOT go as planned. Oh, my head..."
Twilight gasped. "Rainbow Dash?! What are you doing? You almost crashed into Galen!"
"Screw that! You just ran headfirst into a wall at what looked like 200mph! How the hell are you conscious, let alone alive?!"
Rainbow crossed her forehooves in offence. "Hey, I'm made of sturdier stuff than that! I'm totally fine! Okay, maybe I'm a little dizzy, but apart from that I'm okay."
Twilight frowned. "Rainbow, that's not the point! You need to be more careful! Just how often do you crash into pedestrians?"
"Hey, I'm not that clumsy! I was out practicing my stunts, as usual, when I noticed you guys walking out of Rarity's. I was planning on flying just above you to get your attention, so I could show Galen just how awesome of a flyer I am! I guess I was aiming a little lower than I thought though."
Galen brushed himself off as well as he could, making sure to get all the dirt off of his new clothes. "Look, that's cool and all, but never do anything like that again, you almost gave me a damn heart attack! I don't know how durable this new body of mine is, but if I were still human, getting hit by pretty much anything going the speeds you were would have a pretty good shot at instantly killing me."
Rainbow's eyes widened a little. "Oh, uh, sorry. I didn't know that humans were so...fragile. I mean, you're a pony now, so you'd have been fine, but I get it. I'll be careful from now on."
Galen sighed. "Whatever. As long as it doesn't happen again, I'm willing to forget about it." At the very least, now I know this body is more durable than a human's. Quite a bit more if speeding into a brick wall didn't even leave her with a concussion.
Rainbow lazily hovered over to the others. "So, what're you guys up to today? Giving Galen the grand tour of Ponyville?"
Twilight sighed, trying to get over her irritation. "Yes, we are. We were just heading towards Fluttershy's place before you showed up."
"Oh, cool! You mind if I tag along? It's been a while since I've swung by to see 'Shy at her place. The weather's already prepared for the next few days, so I don't got much else going on."
"As long as it's okay with Galen. This is his tour after all, and you did almost tackle him into a wall."
Galen shrugged. "I don't see a problem with it. so long as you don't try and off me again."
"Hey! I already apologized, didn't I? And besides, it was a complete accident!"
"Wait, so your first interaction with her was being tackled into a mud puddle?"
Spike had mentioned how Twilight's first meeting with Rainbow had gone, much to Galen's amusement.
Dash sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, and when I tried to clean her up, I just got her more wet. Then I tried to dry her off, but I just messed her mane up instead. Honestly, looking back, I probably made a pretty bad first impression, huh?"
Twilight smiled. "Don't worry about it Dash. I've gotten to know you, and now I know you were just trying to be helpful, in your own over-the-top way."
As they continued onward, Galen thought of something. "By the way, you mentioned something earlier about having the weather 'prepared'. What does that mean exactly?"
"Well, I'm Ponyville's weather captian! It's my job to make sure that the weather in the area stays on schedule. It's clear skies for the next three days, but it's scheduled to rain on Saturday. Me and my team have already taken care of all the stray clouds, and the rainclouds are stored for later."
"Wait, you can just straight up control the weather? That's incredibly convenient! Back home, weather just does what it wants, and it's up to us to plan around it."
Rainbow, Twilight and Spike looked at Galen with wide eyes. "Your weather is autonomous? That sounds a lot like the Everfree forest! If you can't control the weather, then how do farmers grow their crops effectively? How do you make sure you get enough sunlight? How would you ensure the seasons change on time?"
Galen raised a brow. "It seems like your society is heavily dependent on your weather control. We can't control the weather, but we can predict it pretty accurately with certain tools. We have people called meteorologists who use those tools to predict the weather, and then the weather is broadcast on the local news station so that everyone can know what to expect. Of course, few predictions are 100% accurate, and the further in advance you try to measure the weather, the less accurate results become, but it's usually a pretty reliable way to keep up."
Twilight's eyes lit up in excitement. "Wow! That's incredible! if we could figure out how to recreate those tools, we could be able to better counteract freak storms coming in from the Everfree! But that still doesn't account for how your seasons change."
Galen rolled his eyes. "I can show you a video on how the global climate functions next time you're over if you're interested. I only know so much off the top of my head."
Rainbow groaned. "Pass. Don't get me wrong, all that junk sounds interesting and all, but it probably has a bunch of math and science that'll bore me to death. I'll just have egghead over here give me the spark notes after she figures it out."
Spike snickered. "That's not a good idea Dash. Twilight doesn't do 'spark notes'. Hay, I don't even think she knows the definition of the word 'simplify'!"
Twilight snorted in annoyance. "Of course I do! Simplify: to make (something) simpler or easier to do or understand. Examples in sentences include..."
Rainbow's eyes widened in fear. "Okay, you're right Spike, definitely don't want to ask Twilight. I'll just ask Galen instead. Wait, Galen, you're not a nerd like Twilight, right?"
"Depends on your definition of 'nerd'. I don't think I'm nearly as interested in academics as she is, and I can definitely give you an easy explanation if that's what you're looking for."
Twilight puffed her cheeks out in annoyance. "There's nothing wrong about giving a thorough explanation on a topic! There's a lot of valuable information that a summary just can't cover!"
"Yeah, except that not everyone cares about the finer details. Most people, or ponies, might just want the basic information. That's the whole point of a summary."
The group bantered and bickered for a little while longer, until Fluttershy's cottage finally came into view.
"Huh, she really does live on the outskirts of town, huh?"
"Yeah, Flutters has never been much of a social pony. She's been like that since we were both fillies. She's gotten better over the years, and she's comfortable enough around the ponies in Ponyville to come to Pinkie's parties and other big events, but she still prefers her alone time."
"Nothing wrong with that. I'm not exactly the most social person either. I don't know if you've noticed, but I haven't been the one to start any of the conversations we've had. I'm fine being around others, but I still need privacy. That being said, I know this is probably obvious, but don't go sneaking around my house again like how you were when we first met."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Well, duh! The only reason we did it the first time was because we weren't sure if there was a monster living there or something!"
Galen chose not to think about what conclusions they would have drawn if he hadn't been transformed on arrival. instead, he watched as Twilight trotted up to the front door and knocked softly. A few moments later, the door cracked open, before opening fully a moment later.
"Oh, hello everypony. And Spike. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to exclude you. Perhaps I should start using more inclusive terms when you're around."
"It's fine Fluttershy, It's not a big deal."
"Oh, I apologize, I haven't invited you in yet, have I? I was just preparing some early afternoon tea. You're welcome to have some. Only if you'd like to, of course."
Fluttershy entered the kitchen for a moment before returning with a tray of teacups. She handed them out, before sitting down with the others.
Galen gave his cup a look, before carefully picking it up. "I still don't understand how these hooves are dexterous enough to hold things like this."
Fluttershy sipped her tea a little, awkwardly glancing over at Galen. "S-so, how have you been enjoying Ponyville so far? I'm sorry for prying, I'm just curious."
Galen blew on his tea a little, not trusting it to be cool enough to drink just yet. "Just fine I suppose. It's definitely smaller than most other towns I've been to, but that's honestly nice. Everything is in walking distance, which I suppose would make sense, given that you ponies don't have cars."
Twilight's brow furrowed. 'Car'? is that the strange looking carriage that I saw in that dark room in his house? I'll have to ask Galen about it later.
Fluttershy smiled softly. "Yes, it's quite nice, isn't it? It's why I like Ponyville. It's nice and quiet most of the time, and you can get around quite easily."
"Yeah, I guess that's an upside over where I live, or lived I suppose. There's nothing but houses for miles. If you wanted to go to a store, you'd either need a car or be willing to take hours out of your day just to get to a corner store."
"Oh, that's unfortunate. Well, I hope that you enjoy your time in Ponyville regardless. N-not that I'm saying your old town was worse or anything, I just-"
Galen let out a small laugh. "I get what you mean. I'll admit I do feel homesick, but honestly, who wouldn't in my position, y'know? At least I still got my house, I could've been dragged here without anything." Not that the house missing is a good thing for the rest of my family, but I think I can afford to think a little selfishly right now.
Galen held back a sigh. "The point is, I'm enjoying the tour of the town so far, and I'm sure it's a nice place to live. I just need to get used to the area to fully appreciate it."
Rainbow smirked. "Hey, I get it dude. I know I had a hard time figuring out what was where when I first moved here. And I had the advantage of an aerial view too. Heck, Twi and Spike haven't been here that long themselves, I'm sure they're still figuring things out themselves. Isn't that right Twilight?"
Everyone looked over to Twilight, who was staring wordlessly at her tea. "Hey, Equestria to Twilight! I asked ya a question, egghead!"
"Oh! Uh, sorry Rainbow, I was just thinking about something. What were you asking?"
"I was asking if you were still having trouble navigating Ponyville. You haven't been here very long, after all."
"Oh, I actually made sure to memorize the map of town the first week I was here! I didn't want to get lost, you know?"
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Wow, wait to be relatable."
Twilight chuckled awkwardly, her ears folding back a little. "Yeah... anyway, how has your day been, Fluttershy?"
"It's been nice. I made sure to tend to all of my animal friends as soon as I could, and I was just about to go and restock on groceries when you showed up. O-of course I'm happy you're here, and you're welcome to stay as long as you like! I still have a good portion of the day."
Twilight looked at the clock nearby and frowned. "Speaking of, I'm sorry Fluttershy, but we should get going if we want to see the entire town before it gets too late. There's still a lot for Galen to see, and only so much daylight."
Galen rolled his eyes. "There's really no need to rush Twilight. Even if I don't see everything today, I can always find my way around on my own. It's not like I'd get too lost. My house is kind of hard to miss."
Fluttershy smiled. "Oh, it's quite alright. I'm sure you've got a very busy day ahead of you, and I don't want to keep you. Of course, if you want to stay, that's fine too."
Rainbow rolled her eyes and flew over to the door. "Just make up your dang minds already! There's some cool places I want to show Galen too, and this back and forth is getting boring!"
Galen got up with a huff. "I'm fine with moving on, just stop being so pushy. I don't like being rushed all that much."
Twilight looked down. "I'm sorry. I don't want to make your tour annoying, it's just hard for me to do much of anything without a schedule."
Galen sighed. "It's fine. I know that some people have different ways of doing things. I got OCD myself, just not nearly as bad. Thanks for inviting us in Fluttershy, sorry we didn't stay that long."
Fluttershy smiled. "Oh, it's alright. You can stop by anytime. As long as you want to, of course."
"I'll be sure to come by when I have the time. We'll see you later then."
Twilight rounded up Spike, who was busy eating scones before leaving with the others. The more I dwell on it, the worse I feel about pulling Galen here. He's lucky that his house was brought with him. What would he have thought if he showed up here without anything? I need to get working on a way to get him back to his world as soon as possible.
